Since very few people seem to read past this post before replying I'll add this here. I've listed examples of what goes on. I'm making a case that chain arty strike are not in the best interest of the game. No one has fun when they're boxed into a corner with limited movement options and then have arty's rained down on them. I'm suggesting an alteration to the function of arty's and not their removal (personally think the game would be better without them). Just because something DOES work doesn't mean it's fun.
/EDIT
I'm glad we limited this to a single consumable per mech but it's still really frustrating to be chain hit with arty's 4... 5... 6 times in a row. This utterly destroys medium mechs and cripples assaults. And before you say, "Just look for the smoke," you clearly aren't playing with experienced arty opponents. They're quite skilled at dropping them behind your camera's POV. This gets utterly ridiculous when your team is in a line and no one is far enough back to actually see the smoke.
My suggestions which are AND/OR:
1) Increase the cost of arty's from 40k to 100k. You gotta want it to use it
2) Increase the delay from the time it's placed until the shells hit to at least 10 seconds. Before you say, "But that makes it useless," no it doesn't. There are 2 components to arty: damage and forced enemy movement. When an arty is placed people will move out of the way and that automatically yields an advantage.
3) Increase the refresh time until another arty can be placed. This should be at least 1 minute. The game is 15 minutes long; not all the arty's need to be fired off in the first 5 minutes.
EDIT:
Let the flames begin.
Edited by Mitsuragi, 14 November 2014 - 03:51 PM.