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Have You Tried Playing An Lrm Boat Lately?


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#61 bad arcade kitty

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 06:49 PM

View PostOvion, on 29 May 2015 - 04:21 PM, said:

Try dropping the 10 to a 5.
It'll let you mount more ammo and/or a pair of MGs.

CLRM10s are the least efficient Launchers for clans.
The weight to damage ratio, and sustainability is better with the 15+5, or 2x15,but on the Kit Fox, I'd favour the former.


two 10 sound better than 15 and 5, i might try double ten
more ammo is always nice (i don't really need more backup weapon since, well, it's there for just in case)

#62 Mechwarrior Buddah

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 06:54 PM

View PostAlistair Winter, on 29 May 2015 - 12:44 PM, said:

Not just a match here and there. Have you tried playing 10 or 20 or 30 matches


Yeah I havent done that for months tho. I just cant summon the want to get into matches anymore

#63 Bleary

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 07:06 PM

The games when we've established a solid front and I can roam around at 4-600 meters lighting up targets? My Missileback feels like a god. But the games where everyone's poking their noses out just long enough to snapfire, or our backfield is swarmed by hostile lights, or we get rushed down and collapse into a chaotic brawl? I can either stand around like a glorified spectator futiley trying to keep range and hold locks or I can forget the missiles and just wade in with my backup lasers.

The range band on IS LRMs just makes them too situational on too many maps. Maybe that will change after they're finished revising and expanding the old ones.

#64 Kilo 40

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 07:11 PM

View PostAlistair Winter, on 29 May 2015 - 12:44 PM, said:

I'm consistently getting more kills and doing more damage than other assault mechs, while my win lose ratio is steadily improving. I don't think I'm getting paid at the expense of my teammates, I think my LRM boat is a pretty significant positive factor for our team.


this is my experience as well.

all my LRM "boats" have a much higher k/d than my other mechs.

#65 bad arcade kitty

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 07:21 PM

have you read 'the selfish gene'? (don't read recent books of that guy who wrote it, his atheistic propaganda is meh but his actual biology books are great) it's the problem of hawks vs doves, when there are many hawks doves have advantage and vice versa. so basically when few people seriously play lrm, lrm have some advantage

#66 El Bandito

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 07:24 PM

View PostJman5, on 29 May 2015 - 06:01 PM, said:

Ok so if I can do well in a mech you have said by your own admission is "flatly better off using energy weapons" then it means there is something to the weapon platform?


Go ahead. Try it out. You might catch flak from "Lurm Assault is stupid" crowd, but they can eat their socks. You still will do better in an energy version of the Warhawk, no matter how well you do with Lurms. Unless of course, your Assault Elo is low.

Don't even have to quote me on this: the majority of the MWO players with good enough skills will agree with me.

Edited by El Bandito, 29 May 2015 - 07:47 PM.


#67 Chuanhao

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 07:37 PM

I have used my LRM boat for the founders challenge and Phoenix challenge.

Orion V with 350XL and 3xLRM15

Constantly over 500 dmg.

Constantly moving to locate that slow solo assault or that straggler moving to far forward out of ECM coverage.

Hence have had no issues in Puglandia.

CW though was terrible. Won't go there. The choke points at the gates are always covered with ECM, making LRMs rather more challenging.

#68 Sable

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 08:16 PM

I have several LRM mechs none of them pure "boats" as backup lasers are always the best way to go.

During the Tukayyid event i started using a 6 LRM5 Maddog and boy was it effective. Surprisingly effective in fact. I think LRMs haven't been a big threat in so long most people don't even think about them. I could consistently get 900+ damage before being taken down and needing to switch mechs. The Maddog is a great support mech because it's at a nice tonnage that still allows for some punchier mechs later on.

One of my old favorites is the Battlemaster 1S with 2 LRM 15s and 2 LRM10s with artemis a tag and 3 medium lasers. You can't carry as much ammo as a warhawk but your tightly clumped missiles seem more effective.

And finally there is the Warhawk B with 4 LRM15s and 5 medium lasers. Not only can you carry more than 2000 rounds you have practically a stormcrow's worth of lasers as backup. I just played a game today for the resistance event with my Warhawk and scored 4 kills and 1100+ damage.

It can be rough if there's a lot of ECM but "competetive" players have gotten used to the crutch of ECM and once you catch them without it they fall in short order to the onslaught from the sky. I wish they would fix ECM and make it only effect the mech that has it. It would encourage more people to use LRMs as well as AMS to try to counter it. I also, well before the Timberwolf nerf, would use LRMs on my Timberwolves to great effective. Oh how i miss the timberwolf.

#69 Kilo 40

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 08:25 PM

View PostSable, on 29 May 2015 - 08:16 PM, said:

During the Tukayyid event i started using a 6 LRM5 Maddog and boy was it effective. Surprisingly effective in fact. I think LRMs haven't been a big threat in so long most people don't even think about them. I could consistently get 900+ damage before being taken down and needing to switch mechs. The Maddog is a great support mech because it's at a nice tonnage that still allows for some punchier mechs later on.


yup. it's VERY underrated and very effective.

the only reason I don't run it more is because the heavy queue is so skewed.

#70 Roadkill

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 08:40 PM

View PostJman5, on 29 May 2015 - 06:01 PM, said:

Ok so if I can do well in a mech you have said by your own admission is "flatly better off using energy weapons" then it means there is something to the weapon platform?

The elephant in the room is that you're a damn good pilot regardless of weapons, so I would have to say that no, you doing well with LRMs is not proof of anything except that you are good. ;)

I'm also good with LRMs, but that's because I know how to use them well. I take advantage of their (few) strengths, and work to mitigate their weaknesses.

Do some math and you'll prove it to yourself. Compute your weapon efficiency for LRMs and something else like a Large Laser. By which I mean potential damage / actual damage * accuracy. For LRMs that's within spitting distance of simply accuracy, but for things like lasers you have to figure out your damage ratio.

Examples:

Clan LRM-5
107303 hits, 104387 damage (107303 potential at 1.0 per shot) for 97.28% damage
48.13% accurace for 46.82% weapon efficiency

Clan ER Large Laser
17031 hits, 110,901 damage (187341 potential at 11.0 per shot) for 59.20% damage
90.60% accuracy for 53.63% weapon efficiency

So I'm 7% more efficient with the Clan Large Laser than I am with the Clan LRM-5, which is my best LRM. And I'm pretty good with LRMs and pretty average with direct fire weapons. Most of my LRMs are in the low 40% range, while my direct fire weapons are all in the low 50% range or higher.

Objectively, LRMs are substandard weapons.

#71 Roadkill

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 08:43 PM

And for the record, my Warhawk Prime loadout is 4 x CERLL + 3 x CLRM-15. ;)

#72 Fleeb the Mad

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 09:23 PM

I'd almost define whether a mech is an LRM boat or not by how many other weapons it has.

I've run my founder's Catapult to good effect with paired LRM 15's, though by my own defintion it's not a boat since the LRMs aren't its soul. Maybe there's something to be said for multi-role mechs, but I sacrifice carrying a huge amount of ammunition so I can carry 2 ER Large lasers and a couple mediums. And it seems like it works. Try to engage at 500m-700m and do a combination of direct fire and LRMs, then go closer when the ammo's gone.

I find LRMs are a situational weapon that's pretty feast or famine. Some games you're on Alpine or Caustic and the enemy team has no ECM. Rack up huge damage, but to be honest it's so not fair on maps with no cover. Then sometimes you're drowned in ECM and are dumb-firing missiles at 300m.

Personally I'd like it better if LRMs were a better direct-fire weapon and target sharing didn't allow for so much massed fire. That's why the dynamic is so much different than the other weapons. They're a bit of a force multiplier since they allow for the easiest sort of supporting fire. Massed LRMs will obliterate someone caught out of cover very quickly because so many mechs can fire on them without worrying about LOS or traffic jams at firing positions. But if you're off by your lonesome, a gauss Jaeger will ruins your day while you're trying to hold your lock to bring the missiles down.

#73 Templar Dane

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Posted 29 May 2015 - 11:35 PM

Tonight i played my lurmback for a dozen matches or so. I was the highest damage on team or near it in just about every game.

People leveled up their ecm phracts, so there hasn't been all that much ecm tonight.

Edited by lordtzar, 29 May 2015 - 11:36 PM.


#74 Ovion

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Posted 30 May 2015 - 12:04 AM

View PostRagtag soldier, on 29 May 2015 - 04:41 PM, said:

i literally just got out of a match with an LRM assault. they were virutally useless since most of the other team had radar derp, and when i got close my entire team left the guys shooting at me alone to chase lights. i eventually killed them but i spent more of that match getting shot with missiles than shooting them.
I'll have to try one this week.
Thinking my Warhawks, which generally do well, maybe a Zeus, maybe my atlas? (I'm sort of limited on assaults)

View Postbad arcade kitty, on 29 May 2015 - 06:49 PM, said:

two 10 sound better than 15 and 5, i might try double ten
more ammo is always nice (i don't really need more backup weapon since, well, it's there for just in case)
2x10 or a 20 are 5T and up to 5 slots , a 15+5 combo is 4.5 and 4 slots.
Better still is 4x5, at 4T,4S.


#75 Joseph Mallan

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Posted 30 May 2015 - 05:34 AM

A boat no.

My Zeus and King Crab have an LRM15, and my Hellslinger 3 LRM5s (so a rapid fire LRM15). They help out when I'm far away from the enemy and lets me sprinkle some pain while I move closer.

#76 Jman5

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Posted 30 May 2015 - 12:07 PM

View PostRoadkill, on 29 May 2015 - 08:40 PM, said:

The elephant in the room is that you're a damn good pilot regardless of weapons, so I would have to say that no, you doing well with LRMs is not proof of anything except that you are good. ;)

Well this is unfair. Bandito attributes my success with LRMs to my mech, you attribute my success to my pilot skill. So my results are meaningless? Does this mean we have to throw out anything EMP or SJR players say because they are good pilots playing quirked mechs?

Look at the end of the day the two biggest advantages of LRMs are the damage over time combined with the ability to fire from cover. I don't have to tell you all how many super-alphas are flying around. Exposed mechs get obliterated fast. You can out trade almost other weapon system because you can often fire from almost total safety. Hit efficiency is much less important when the enemy can't hit you back.

btw you can't really cross compare weapons from the stat sheet because accuracy efficiency stat on lasers is bogus. if you brush a mech for 0.1 damage it counts as a 100% hit even if you miss the rest of the beam duration. missiles and ballistics on the other hand are individually tracked.

For missiles "hit" is calculated for each missile so of course your damage is going to be 1.0 (that's how much damage 1 missile does).

Ok so this afternoon I played a random BS warhawk with 3 LRM 15s, 1 LRM 10, and 3 ER ML.

Here is my 14 game screenshot dump (accidentally included one from last night with a different build and another is a duplicate)

TL;DR damage scores
988
900
736
353
808
763
835
253
579
916
561
740
404
898

Average damage: 695.3
Median damage: 751.5

8 out of 14 games I was the rank 1 score out of 24 players. My median ranking was #1.

So clearly you can consistently succeed with a non LRM-quirked mech.

Edited by Jman5, 30 May 2015 - 12:20 PM.


#77 Ultimax

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Posted 30 May 2015 - 12:19 PM

View PostJman5, on 30 May 2015 - 12:07 PM, said:

You can out trade almost other weapon system because you can often fire from almost total safety. Hit efficiency is much less important when the enemy can't hit you back.



The problem with the conversation about LRMs is too much hyperbole, unlike your accurate assessment above.


What makes them "easy" is the fact that you don't need to expose yourself to damage to score damage yourself, you can piggy back off of the effort of others. (low skill floor, low risk, low to high payoff)

What makes them "easy" is that they require zero aiming onto specific components of any kind.


What makes them challenging to hit the skill ceiling with is the number of factors that can work against them that are out of the players control (enemy ECM, flight paths, etc) - and the fact that you can't target components even if you wanted to.


What makes them a bad weapon (for the game overall), is that new & mediocre players are drawn to the first 2 aspects of them but end up learning a lot of bad habits, they don't ever learn how to trade properly, they can't torso twist while using them, they don't learn the value of aggression and seeking key positions.


This flips when someone who already knows those things (like Jman) gets ahold of a LRM build and squeezes out its max potential (and terrorizing the PUG queue in the process).

It's also problematic when the PUG queue lotto sees on team with a crapton of LRMs, on just the right map, with no friendly ECM. It's too much force multiplication for too little effort.


Indirect Fire can have way too much payout for the effort required, it can also have an atrocious payout where many players can't even utilize their weapon system.

Direct Fire of LRMs has similar swings, the payout is balanced through the investment into things like Artemis and having to deal with counter-tech mechanics but it can also be atrocious if your opponents are good at facing LRMs and don't have too many bad-PUGs on their team who can't protect themselves.


There are situations where LRMs are OP, there are situations where they are one of the worst weapon systems in the game.



It's for all of these things and more that I dislike them as a weapon system, and think they should be redesigned - both IDF and DF modes.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 30 May 2015 - 12:21 PM.


#78 Khobai

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Posted 30 May 2015 - 12:21 PM

LRMs still have all the same problems theyve always had:

1) noobs get killed by them too easily. killing noobtard pugs with lrms does not make lrms good nor does it make you skilled. please get that through your heads.

2) vets dont get killed by them at all and stacked ECM hard counters them way too much. If the same people claiming success with lrms tried going up against an actual vet team with lrms they would be severely punished for it.

Those two extremes are why LRMs are bad. No weapon system should have extremes like that. LRMs shouldnt utterly slaughter noobs and shouldnt be completely useless vs veterans with stacked ECM.

Quote

There are situations where LRMs are OP, there are situations where they are one of the worst weapon systems in the game.


Precisely. LRMs are a weapon of extremes. They should not be extreme one way or the other. They should have a nice flat curve where theyre never overpowered but also never useless.

Quote

What makes them "easy" is the fact that you don't need to expose yourself to damage to score damage yourself, you can piggy back off of the effort of others. (low skill floor, low risk, low to high payoff)


Again this is where much of the hostility against LRMs comes from. Because kills/scoring in the game is based on selfish individual motivations rather than the team winning as a whole. They need to change the kills/scoring system to encourage teamwork more IMO.

There should be no "kill-stealing". There should simply be killing enemies and proportionally shared kill credit among everyone who helped kill that enemy based on how much damage each player did. If you did 10% of the damage you get .1 kills. If you did 90% of the damage you get .9 kills. etc...

Edited by Khobai, 30 May 2015 - 12:34 PM.


#79 Ultimax

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Posted 30 May 2015 - 01:20 PM

View PostKhobai, on 30 May 2015 - 12:21 PM, said:

There should be no "kill-stealing". There should simply be killing enemies and proportionally shared kill credit among everyone who helped kill that enemy based on how much damage each player did. If you did 10% of the damage you get .1 kills. If you did 90% of the damage you get .9 kills. etc...



The issue is, if one mech has to work into position, get line of sight, risk damage from potentially 3 or 4 enemy mechs to do X amount of damage and an ally can piggy back doing as much damage or more without that risk the "team out put" method is not being fairly distributed and can not be properly accounted for.


Unless you did something such as cut all IDF bonuses in half or less than DF usage.

#80 Khobai

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Posted 30 May 2015 - 01:58 PM

Quote

The issue is, if one mech has to work into position, get line of sight, risk damage from potentially 3 or 4 enemy mechs to do X amount of damage and an ally can piggy back doing as much damage or more without that risk the "team out put" method is not being fairly distributed and can not be properly accounted for.


I understand the issue. Which is why I said the kills/scoring system needs to be changed.

Spotters should also get spotting rewards based on the amount of LRM damage they helped spot for.





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