3 replies to this topic

[Scum of the Earth]

So, I'm a new player. A friend convinced me to start playing to join dropping with him and just on my 3rd day now of playing. As far as my background goes; been playing MW since 2nd edi in the 80's, love the history and tech, but I'm a terrible 1st person shooter. However, I have been improving over these few days too.

Some of my own observations that have helped for weapons, LRMs are rather forgiving for targeting, SRMs have a nice upclose shotgun feel, ballistics give you that nice either you "hit or miss" feel, and lasers have a 2-3 second burst of energy. Correct me if I'm wrong with lasers, the longer you keep the stream on your target, the more damage (up to full) it does? Which is what I thought pulse lasers would do (better) than a regular laser. I've shot a fast mech with a 3 group of medium lasers and ended up doing 3 pts of damage. I've also noticed a nice trail of dots on a sweeping shot. Which would seem to mean 1 laser can hit multiple targets and/or areas on a mech (although in small amounts where it traveled).

However, as I've spectated on other players to see what they're doing, I have noticed something. Sometimes players have their crosshairs in their reticular but have an extra little circle with a line dragging around behind it. As I have tried to aim down a hill to target someone and been unable to get my target into my crosshairs due to torso angle; I have seen people use the little circle to aim lower to hit targets. It also seems to improve laser fire as the full burst is concentrated into the one area of the target they hit. I have been one shoted several times and nothing but my center torso hit at great ranges (500 meters or more). Sure, that could be luck of course, but I can't help but think they had that little circle helping them.

Sooooo... what is that? Is it equipment? A pilot skill? Something exclusive to clan mechs? Is it expensive to buy (i.e., MC instead of C-bills)? I'm curious to know if there's any way to improve my damage overall? Especially for someone not very good at 1st person shooters. Thank you.

[Roughneck45]

You are correct with the lasers. To apply full damage you must hold your aim on the target for the full duration of the burn, thus shakey aim will spread your damage around.

The little circle in the cross hairs is the aimer for you arms. By default in the options it is locked to your torso cross hairs. Go into the options and uncheck arm lock and you'll be good to go.

Going to the testing grouds can help with your laser aim. Move full speed while trying to keep your aim on one specific component of the enemy mech.

Edited by Roughneck45, 29 December 2014 - 12:24 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

in addition to what Roughneck45 said, Lasers have a duration between about 0.5 and 1.6 seconds, their damage is dealt in a series of pulses, those dots you have seen are each where 1 pulse of damage was dealt so in theory it is possible to sweep a laser over a Mech and miss because non of the pulses hit it.

with regards to the arms, most Mechs have up/down and left/right movement on both arms, however if a Mech does not have lower arm actuators it is missing the left/right arm movement, on most Clan Mechs you can chose if you want the lower arm/hand actuators (but they cannot be fitted if the arm contains a PPC or a Ballistic weapon), if you have the lower arm you get partial side to side movement, adding the hand gets you more.
IS Mechs cannot add or remove the arm actuators, so Mechs like the Jenner, Blackjack and Jagermech cannot get lower arm actuators.

also the arms move ahead of the torsos, and the torso catches up (provided the arms have not moved further than the torso can)


you have probably noticed that most weapons have an optimum and maximum range, e.g;
the PPC (unlike the ERPPC) does no damage inside 80m,
IS LRMs do no damage inside 180, while Clan LRMs have their damage ramp up gradually between about 80 and 180m (doing effectively no damage inside 80m),
with all missile weapons the listed range is the maximum (and that includes flight distance, so fire LRMs at a target 980m away and because they travel up then drop down on the target there is a good chance they will not reach the target)
energy and ballistic weapons have there damage gradually reduce until double range where they do 0

so try to only use the weapons within optimum range, and of course as you recognized if possible keep your lasers on the same component for the entire burn time.

the advantage of pulse lasers is that they deal the full damage in a shorter amount of time, their disadvantage is higher weight and shorter range, Small and Medium Pulse Lasers are great for hitting fast moving targets

as for you getting instantly killed from greater than 500m, that is most likely one or more dual Gauss or dual PPC Mech focus firing you, there are particularly nasty dual Gauss dual + PPC Dire Wolf builds, which can do 50 damage to your CT inside less than a second, enough damage to kill most light and some Medium Mechs (depending on armor distribution), of course that is only likely to happen if you are standing still, so to reduce the chances of this keep moving (true for any weight class, even if the movement is just torso twisting).

[Koniving]

Scum of the Earth, on 29 December 2014 - 12:15 PM, said:

So, I'm a new player. A friend convinced me to start playing to join dropping with him and just on my 3rd day now of playing. As far as my background goes; been playing MW since 2nd edi in the 80's, love the history and tech, but I'm a terrible 1st person shooter. However, I have been improving over these few days too.

Some of my own observations that have helped for weapons, LRMs are rather forgiving for targeting, SRMs have a nice upclose shotgun feel, ballistics give you that nice either you "hit or miss" feel, and lasers have a 2-3 second burst of energy. Correct me if I'm wrong with lasers, the longer you keep the stream on your target, the more damage (up to full) it does? Which is what I thought pulse lasers would do (better) than a regular laser. I've shot a fast mech with a 3 group of medium lasers and ended up doing 3 pts of damage. I've also noticed a nice trail of dots on a sweeping shot. Which would seem to mean 1 laser can hit multiple targets and/or areas on a mech (although in small amounts where it traveled).

One thing I've noticed is that in past MW games such as MW3, Pulse Lasers did the long beam thing.

In MWO, Pulse lasers deal a much shorter beam for more damage in exchange for their greater weight.

The trail of dots, however, is due to a limitation in creating a single 'streaming' particle effect for wherever you cut.
In reality, a laser has about 5 to 10 ticks.
Pulse lasers have fewer, so each tick does more damage in addition to the shorter time in which to use them.

Just as an example, say a medium laser (without quirks) has 5 ticks.
It lasts 1 second long. There's a tick every 0.2 seconds. So you fire (0 seconds, beam starts. 0.2 seconds, queue damage. 0.4 seconds, queue damage. 0.6 seconds. queue damage. 0.8 seconds, queue damage. 1 second, queue damage.)
The total damage is 5.
5 / 5 = 1 damage per tick.

In reality it isn't confirmed whether it has 5 or 10 ticks, so it could be 0.5 damage per tick every 0.1 seconds.

Regardless, it does a total of 5 damage from start to finish.

A pulse laser, such as a medium pulse laser, does 6 damage in 0.6 seconds, giving a tick of 1 damage every 0.1 seconds (though some say a tick of 2 damage every 0.2 seconds). Again, somewhat up for debate on the specifics, but the fact that lasers use 'ticks' (the actual name given by the developers) to distribute damage every x unit of time is confirmed.

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However, as I've spectated on other players to see what they're doing, I have noticed something. Sometimes players have their crosshairs in their reticular but have an extra little circle with a line dragging around behind it. As I have tried to aim down a hill to target someone and been unable to get my target into my crosshairs due to torso angle; I have seen people use the little circle to aim lower to hit targets. It also seems to improve laser fire as the full burst is concentrated into the one area of the target they hit.

This would be the separation of the "Arm" Crosshair and the "Torso" Crosshair. Arm represented by the 'o' and torso by the +.
It is used at 5:20 and onward in this video, and is used to kill a circling Hunchback at 7:20-ish without turning.


You can take more advanced control of the arms by using the Left CTRL key for even more accurate aiming, at the cost of losing control of the torso.


This video, while not terribly good, starts immediately with the use of the advanced aiming feature (back when Armlock didn't exist, or HSR which is a lag compensation, so hit registration at the time was absolutely awful). At 1:40 you'll see why Armlock has its uses, when the lasers are firing in two different directions.

Most people will "Shift" Armlock on, in order to lock the arms to the body for more accurate shooting especially against light mechs.

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I have been one shoted several times and nothing but my center torso hit at great ranges (500 meters or more). Sure, that could be luck of course, but I can't help but think they had that little circle helping them.

It's very likely that they turn off that circle by shifting Armlock to on, allowing them to channel All their weapons at once into one spot. Likely a Gauss or PPC combination.

Example shown here at 30 seconds in.

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Sooooo... what is that? Is it equipment? A pilot skill? Something exclusive to clan mechs? Is it expensive to buy (i.e., MC instead of C-bills)? I'm curious to know if there's any way to improve my damage overall? Especially for someone not very good at 1st person shooters. Thank you.

Option in your options. Specifically a checkbox under the main options, "Armlock." It's near "Start in third person."

Edited by Koniving, 29 December 2014 - 03:10 PM.