10 replies to this topic

[Blue Pheonix]

PGI,

Please make the AMS and the upcoming LAMS system more intelligent.

Too often the AMS randomly fires even though enemy missiles do not hit any friendly mechs due to the enemy losing target lock and "orphaning" the missiles into the ground or because a friendly player is behind a rock/mountain or under a building/cover. Yet the AMS system continues to unintelligently fire just because that missile is going to hit within a certain dome/radius regardless of its trajectory and the surrounding terrain.

Mechwarrior and Battletech are not current Earth year technologies. They are futuristic technologies. Using radar to track incoming threats and dismissing threats that are projected to hit rural non populated areas is already a realistic thing with today’s actual technology. One only has to look at Israel’s intelligent “Iron dome” air defense system:
https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Iron_Dome

So the tech already exists to track targets and shoot it down if it is detected to actually hit a friendly target and not waste ammo/fire if the threat is projected to not hit anything. This concept (firing at threats and not firing at non threats) is already realistic. Surely more advanced futuristic radar and faster processors in the Mechwarrior universe can do an even better job of what is already realistically done today.

While the Iron dome seems to fire a missile, one only has to look at the “pretty sick” Army CRAM system to see that we already do have a modern day Mechwarrior AMS system: https://youtu.be/O7rc7U61B5E.

The Army CRAM is also not a dumb shooter (like the current Mechwarrior AMS) according to the article:

"C-RAM uses sensor, command and control, and visualization tools to detect incoming threats and locate their sources. Once C-RAM confirms the threat, its command and control (C2) system warns exposed soldiers, and provides track data to the intercept system to destroy the incoming RAM threat, and passes point of origin and point of impact information on to other systems and sensors.
http://www.militarya...mbat-teams.html

So you see, in the teen years of the 2000’s, we already have realistic tech that can intelligently track and fire upon real threats and ignore weapons fired that will not hit valuables to conserve ammo. Why does extremely futuristic tech in the Mechwarrior universe not have this capability? Two word answer, it should.

PGI, please make the AMS and upcoming LAMS system more intelligent firing at only real threats and dismissing missiles that are going to hit the side of a rock/building or be orphaned off because of a weapons lock loss.

Also, please correspondingly enlarge that "intelligent" dome/radius for each heavier/larger targeting computer added to a mech.

Thanks

Edited by Blue Pheonix, 12 July 2017 - 04:18 AM.

[VonBruinwald]

I'm all for making AMS intelligent but only on the condition that the AMS system will only target missiles within your radar cone. If your radar can't 'see' those missiles then your AMS shouldn't be able to target them.

[Damnedtroll]

Using a lot my lrm in direct fire shooting without lock... more missile hit and nothing to tell you that they are coming for u.

[Blue Pheonix]

VonBruinwald, on 13 July 2017 - 09:22 AM, said:

I'm all for making AMS intelligent but only on the condition that the AMS system will only target missiles within your radar cone. If your radar can't 'see' those missiles then your AMS shouldn't be able to target them.

Isn't this how it works now? Meaning the AMS only targets missiles being fired in a specific radius dome?

[ShoX]

I kind of disagree with the original presumption. I doubt a dedicated anti Missle system today could target a missle, extrapolate a trajectory and then extrapolate the intended target and the lock-on state of anywhere within 5 to 200 missles that have been launched within 900 meters of you.
You could maybe target all the missiles, but you wouldn't know the lock state and surely not be able to line up the trajectory without accepting a severe loss in response time. Maybe you could toggle a somewhat smart mode that only shoots locked on missiles at half the rate of fire, but then it wouldn't work against unguided or so. Still, seems too nitpicky to be worth the consideration.

[MechanicalWraith]

With regards to the idea that AMS should be smarter because it's futuristic - this is battletech, LosTech is a thing. Furthermore, the reason behind AMS' simplicity in targeting any-and-all missile threats regardless of walls, is performance. High RoF and target count means it cannot even afford to consider LoS because the game servers have finite computational resources, whilst not necessarily as costly as raycasting against a 3d environment, your suggestion would certainly have a cost.

Ultimately AMS as a game element is balanced on other factors, like damage, range, ammo/ton or heat in the case of LAMS. Smarter AMS would be a primarily visual change and not noticeable in most situations because of the frantic pace of MWO combat.

[Blue Pheonix]

MechanicalWraith, on 14 July 2017 - 05:31 AM, said:

With regards to the idea that AMS should be smarter because it's futuristic - this is battletech, LosTech is a thing. Furthermore, the reason behind AMS' simplicity in targeting any-and-all missile threats regardless of walls, is performance. High RoF and target count means it cannot even afford to consider LoS because the game servers have finite computational resources, whilst not necessarily as costly as raycasting against a 3d environment, your suggestion would certainly have a cost.

Ultimately AMS as a game element is balanced on other factors, like damage, range, ammo/ton or heat in the case of LAMS. Smarter AMS would be a primarily visual change and not noticeable in most situations because of the frantic pace of MWO combat.

The idea to make AMS more intelligent is not just because it is futuristic and cool but is threefold:

1. Yes, current real life tech already exists that targets incoming missiles, their trajectory and their projected target area and dismissing those missiles that are not threats to valuable assets
2. Having an intelligent AMS system would save ammunition for the one carrying the AMS system
3. Having an intelligent AMS system would, not give a friendly assault position away by an AMS usually firing at buildings, mountains, walls and orphaned missiles that will not strike a friendly.

Where an intelligent AMS will come in handy even more is with the new upcoming Laser Anti Missile System (LAMS). Yes, the LAMS will not have ammo but each shot will come at the cost of heat. So big deal right, no lost ammo to worry about with LAMs.

Think about it, you and teammates are sitting underneath HPG manifold or under the center in Crimson straight, against a mountain in Canyon network (the list goes on and on) with the LAMs dumbly blasting away at ceilings, walls, mountains, not locked targets. Not only is the LAMS/AMS user giving his position away, that person essentially runs the risk of overheating on useless shots.

If one makes the argument, yeah well, just turn it off. Sure, you could just turn it off but why should it be like this? Does Israel have to constantly turn off and on its "Iron Dome system"? Of course not. The system tracks threats, projects where they are going, fires when the missile(s) are projected to hit a valuable and allows the missile to continue on its trajectory when its projected to not hit anything. If it is a real thing now, why can't it be something that futuristic tech, with much better radar, processors and tech be able to do?

When you go back to my first point in the OP, the tech already exists to use radar to track incoming threats and dismiss threats that are projected to hit rural non populated areas. It is already a realistic thing with today’s actual realistic technology.

Overheating, giving ones position away or running out of ammo is fine if the system is intelligent and firing at only threats (like today's real tech). Its not OK to have these things happen because the system is not more intelligent, as it is now, firing just because the missile gets with thin a certain dome radius, regardless of terrain, projected hit location etc.

Edited by Blue Pheonix, 14 July 2017 - 10:28 AM.

[Blue Pheonix]

Yes, tracking every single missile would be computational heavy. It would be computational heavy if the AMS system is unintelligent (like it is now). It would be computationally heavy if the AMS system is intelligent.

Tracking every single missile would be computationally heavy regardless if one has an intelligent or unintelligent AMS system if MWO did indeed track every single missile. However, I do not think that is how the current system works (does not track every single missile).

From what I understand, the AMS system as it stands now does not target and track every single missile. It targets the entire salvo. Tracking 1 LRM 15 salvo is a lot less computational then tracking 15 individual missiles. If a person fires off two salvos of LRM 15s, MWO does not track 30 missiles but 2 items (the two clustered groups of missiles). Doing it this way is not computationally heavy.

The animation you see is the AMS system firing at the salvo, not individual missiles. Those are random animated missiles blowing up based on the the stats of the AMS and the number of missiles in the salvo.

Having an intelligent AMS system would still not track individual missiles with their each individual hitboxes but would track the salvo, just as it is now.

Direct weapons fire (lasers, ballistics etc.) work by line of sight now. What would happen if I fired into a wall when an enemy player is on the opposite side of the wall? No damage would be registered to the enemy right? This is how it should be and because the server saw that the weapon(s) fired did not have line of sight to the target as their was an object in the way (in this case a wall), no damage was registered. The server has to constantly keep track of line of sight of all weapons fired. This is already happening, changes to AMS or not.

Tracking another single object (salvo missile fired - not each individual missile) would not put unnecessary computational load on either the server or the client. In fact, line of sight is already used with missiles now. What would happen if I was standing behind a wall (or mountain) that was directly in the path of incoming missiles? Would the missiles travel through the wall? Of course not. It doesn't happen like this because even with missiles, the salvo is tracked by line of sight. The missiles may travel a different trajectory then direct fire weapons but missiles still need line of sight to register damage. The server has too keep track of this, changes to AMS or not.

The way you could program this is if the enemy salvo does not have line of sight to a friendly teammate, the AMS system does not fire.

Or, go the opposite end, if the friendly AMS system does not have line of sight to the individual salvo fired, it does not fire.

It would not be computationally heavy to do either of these things. Its just a case of it hasn't been programmed to do this.

PGI, please help our vulnerable assaults out. Make AMS more intelligent for these reasons:

1. Current real life tech already exists that targets incoming missiles, their trajectory and their projected target area and dismissing those missiles that are not threats to valuable assets
2. Having an intelligent AMS system would save ammunition for the one carrying the AMS system
3. Having an intelligent AMS system would, not give assault position away by an AMS usually firing at buildings, mountains, walls and lost targets
4. Having an intelligent LAMS system will prevent useless overheating from firing at non threats

Thanks

Edited by Blue Pheonix, 14 July 2017 - 10:36 AM.

[MechanicalWraith]

Blue Pheonix, on 14 July 2017 - 10:07 AM, said:

Yes, tracking every single missile would be computational heavy. It would be computational heavy if the AMS system is unintelligent (like it is now). It would be computationally heavy if the AMS system is intelligent.

Tracking every single missile would be computationally heavy regardless if one has an intelligent or unintelligent AMS system if MWO did indeed track every single missile. However, I do not think that is how the current system works (does not track every single missile).

From what I understand, the AMS system as it stands now does not target and track every single missile. It targets the entire salvo. Tracking 1 LRM 15 salvo is a lot less computational then tracking 15 individual missiles. If a person fires off two salvos of LRM 15s, MWO does not track 30 missiles but 2 items (the two clustered groups of missiles). Doing it this way is not computationally heavy.

The animation you see is the AMS system firing at the salvo, not individual missiles. Those are random animated missiles blowing up based on the the stats of the AMS and the number of missiles in the salvo.

Having an intelligent AMS system would still not track individual missiles with their each individual hitboxes but would track the salvo, just as it is now.

The way you could program this is give each salvo line of sight. If the enemy salvo does not have line of sight to a friendly teamate, the AMS system does not fire.

Or, go the opposite end, if the AMS system does not have line of sight to the individual salvo fired, it does not fire. It would not be computationally heavy to do this. Its just a case of it hasn't been programmed to do this.

Fair point, note though I didn't say it'd cost alot, just that it would have a cost. That said, my main reasoning not to change anything is that plenty of existing variables can be altered to improve AMS performance without any code reworks (and the associated PGI bug-to-patch period).

[Blue Pheonix]

MechanicalWraith, on 14 July 2017 - 10:20 AM, said:

Fair point, note though I didn't say it'd cost alot, just that it would have a cost. That said, my main reasoning not to change anything is that plenty of existing variables can be altered to improve AMS performance without any code reworks (and the associated PGI bug-to-patch period).

Thanks for your response.

I updated my post after you typed your response and just saw your response now.

I agree, tracking another item would have a degree of computational cost but, in my opinion, not a substantial one.

It would be like tracking an extra enemy laser or balistic, or SRM or whatever weapon. If an extra one of these weapons were added and fired from a mech, it would also come at a cost to the processing of the server but not a substantial one. The server has to keep track of all weapons fired and LOS of each of them, regardless of the weapon.

MWO already tracks line of sight for every weapon fired and it keeps track of if there is an object in the way. If there is an object in the way, regardless of the weapon type, the damage does not register because of no LOS. This is true with all weapons, direct fire and even LRMs. The server already has to keep track of these things. There is already a small computational cost for tracking all weapons fired and objects in the way currently.

Just changing the code to AMS and LAMs to fire when LOS of missiles is maintained to a friendly unit and not fire when no LOS is available would not be computationally heavy. It just hasn't been programmed to be done yet.

Changing the code would:

Save ammo
Save tonnage
Save slots
Save heat - with LAMs
Save unnecessarily giving individual friendly slow moving teammates position away from non threatening enemy shots
Save unnecessarily giving the whole friendly group position away because of non threatening enemy shots

PGI - Please change the code to make AMS and LAMs more intelligent.

Edited by Blue Pheonix, 14 July 2017 - 11:03 AM.

[Blue Pheonix]

With the initial of LAMs today, having a more intelligent system is important.