William Conrad, on 04 October 2014 - 04:58 AM, said:
...with Clan LRMs having half the tonnage of the IS LRM...
We need better protections against these LRM rains. Like more AMS on mechs or chaff pods.
I'd like to point out something here. Yes, clan LRMs (and weapons in general) tend to weigh less than IS versions, but you also have to keep in mind that often IS mechs have more tonnage (depending upon engine/loudout) for weapons. Clan weapons need to be a little lighter if they are going to even fit anything in their mechs most times.
As far as protection against LRMs, have you personally used LRMs? There are plenty of protection as of the moment against LRMs.
- ECM: Provided UAV, NARC or TAG is not on you, or an enemy mech with BAP is not near you, this is just about immunity to LRMs.
- AMS: A single AMS system will eat an LRM5 launcher, making the LRM5 a waste to take. 2 AMS can eat an LRM10 to LRM15 launcher, making those weapons useless to take. If your teammate also have AMS, and you all stay together... you can easily disrupt up, or beyond, 80 LRm salvos. If it's a clan LRM? That is even more LRMs your AMS system ca eat up. (Clan LRMs are more susceptible to AMS, thus AMS is more effective at knocking them out.)
- Cover: Cover can break line of sight, which makes the LRM mech loose lock. Tall cover can completely block LRMs as well. Tunnels and areas with pieces of terrain above them (such as the dock in Crimson Strait, or the center of HPG) grants immunity to it, all while you can even still see and shoot back on the LRM user. Cover is also effective against direct line of fire weapons.
- Radar Dep: If your opponent LRM user doesn't have advance target decay, as soon as you break line of sight, you break the lock. This module also plays havoc with UAV I seem to find, and NARC at times. Sometimes, you can even still shoot a target while being only partly in cover, and somehow Radar Deprivation will drop the lock, even though your opponent can still see just shy of 50% of your mech.
Movement: Though it isn't 100% proof anymore, moving perpendicular to the source of the LRMs will still negate some of the damage. If you can move perpendicular to the LRM source, while breaking line of sight/lock, then you can often easily avoid all LRMs tossed at you.
- UAVs: If you see these in the air above you, or you suspect the enemy is using one and look up and see it, shoot it down. Once its been shot down, not only do you (I believe) get some C-bills and experience for doing so, but you also shut it down and it's ability to see targets from above. You can also just move out of it's limited range and ignore it from there too.
- If someone is using IS LRMs, and they are alone, get close to them. LRMs have a 180m minimum range. Get witihin that range against a lone LRM mech, and you probably can eat them with no farther damage to yourself.
- Oops. We can't forget about the AMS overcharge modules either here. They really do a number on LRMs as well, as you can make them shoot faster and at longer ranges, which means even more LRMs get shot out of the air before they hit you.
- Light mechs are still a pain for LRMs to hit. They are fast, and many of the trailing LRMs that are tracking still tend to hit the ground. A light mech with ECM... well... It's a stacked effect.
- Shutting down: Though, shutting down will break the lock, they will continue to travel to the last spot the LRMs had a lock on you. This means that shutting down isn't normally effective to counter a volley of LRMs. However, if one also has JJs, one can jump up, shut down quickly in the air, and fall to the ground. This leaves the LRMs tracking a target in the air still, making all the LRMs potentially fly harmlessly over your head.
- I'm sure there are more...
As you can see, LRMs have a lot of counters. Actually, LRMs are the only weapon in the game with any counters (besides tactical movement/cover) at all. They use to be the only weapon with any buffs, but now all weapons can get buff modules as well. Often times, the LRMs also could use expensive and weighty buffs (Artemis/TAG/NARC/BAP/UAV/Etc) to be truly worth while to even take, which leads people to committing a lot of weight (for weapons, buffs and ammo) to their LRM launchers. This tends to leave them with very little close range defenses most times, and maybe even an XL engine (so aim for the sides of these LRM mechs, and they may just die).
To those that say LRMs are OP, I wish to challenge them to play an LRM based mech in public PUG play. See how effective you feel you are. If you really wish to take a challenge, take your LRM mech against a friend and 1v1 or 4v4 people, one side with LRMs and another without. (Stock Mech Monday has shown that LRMs are more effective in a larger group. The smaller the group, the less effective they are before the enemy get too close.) I love my LRMs, but I must admit that my direct fire weapons/mechs get far more kills and component destructions than my LRMs ever do, but my LRM mechs tend to deal more damage (all over my targets and not in any concentrated section of my opponent).
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