220 replies to this topic

[Mcgral18]

Missiles haven't always been terrible weapons. They were actually the Meta at one point...that point being up to 90 damage from a single SRM6...splash damage did nasty things to small mechs.

They also had 2.5 damage per missile at that point, so even without the splash they were made dangerous. Artemis also affected their flight path more significantly, having optimal convergence paths at set distances. 90 and 250M?

Present Artemis just cuts down Spread by 34%. Very boring compared to previous iterations.

Even LRMs were a threat...largely because of the splash headshotting most mechs instantly (hotpatched quickly). 1.8 damage per LRM was big as well.

Then game the Giga-nerfs. 1.5 damage SRMs, and 0.7 damage for LRMs...we aren't in those dark days anymore, but not far off.
LRMs being largely rubbish because of their travel speed and the Jesus Box preventing LoS locks without paying the taxes, and SRMs because their 11M CoF spread prevents much damage application where you want it until you facehug at 10M.
Why not just use pinpoint weapons from 200-1200M instead? Which is ...exactly what happens.


Suggestions have been given since the days of the Giganerfs.
LRMs require more depth, due to the implications of Indirect fire and the Jesus Box, but SRMs can be done without other implications. They are short range (because of the travel time, one of the shortest effective ranges in the game) and direct fire only.


Current isSRMs are 2.15 damage per missile. A pitiful buff, not where they should be at 2.5. By Lore, they should actually be 3 damage, as they're Dead-Fire missiles.

Compared to cSRMs, I don't think 3 damage is out of the question, but a progressive 2.5 is probably best to see if that's enough. PGI's sledgehammer balance hasn't been good in the past.

Spread Values for isSRMs are as follows:

• isSRM6 Spread=5.7, CoF=11.4M
  
• isSRM4 Spread=5.2, CoF=10.4M
  
• isSRM2 Spread=4.8, CoF=9.6M

Artemis being the 34% decrease,

• isSRM6+A Spread=3.762, CoF=7.524M
  
• isSRM4+A Spread=3.432, CoF=6.864M
  
• isSRM2+A Spread=3.168, CoF=6.336M

Clan SRMs, at half the base tonnage, have 2.0 damage per missile and 0.2 additional spread per missile launcher.

• cSRM6 Spread=5.9, CoF=11.8M
  
• cSRM4 Spread=5.4, CoF=10.8M
  
• cSRM2 Spread=5.0, CoF=10M

Artemis affecting cSRMs the same way.



For 1.5 tons, 0.9 extra damage seems pitiful. At 2.5 damage, the isSRM6 would gain 3 damage, and at 3 damage, the isSRM would gain a full 6 extra damage over the cSRM6.


Spread values with Artemis are reasonable, but still fairly large.
Travel Speed could use a boost. If they go to 2.5 damage, I would bump isSRMs to 500M/s (up from 300M/s). For reference, an AC20 is 650 M/s.



For Clan SRMs, being half weight is a pretty good advantage, and likely could stay...but I want them to have a unique feel. Any buff also affects the God Tier robots more than any, as they have both the tonnage and hardpoints to utilise them, unlike the less great robots.
The idea was stream fire (same 0.05 delay as cLRMs) for smaller spread (less tubes, less weight, more accurate firing system as fluff)...but after thinking it through it's probably best to just leave them as they are, for now.



As for Streaks...I haven't used them in Months. Buff isStreaks back to 2.5 (as they've only got the 2), and let someone who knows them suggest something.




TL:DR
isSRMs
damage 2.15>2.5
Velocity 300>500

isSSRMs
damage 2>2.5

Clam SRMs
Current stats


That might make isSRMs powerful, but certainly not better than Gauss Vomit overall. Probably not even at 100M.

Cutting down spread is also an option.

Edited by Mcgral18, 09 September 2015 - 04:54 PM.

[Mister Blastman]

A tightened grouping would be really nice too, for SRMs. They don't get the range doubling other weapons get so might as well make them devastating up close. I would even be for bringing back splash damage on them.

[Sarlic]

I want the totally mauling damage back we got before(?) the first invasion. All mechs were slower, as just the general gameplay. But less boating.

In it's current form boating the missiles is the only way to make it as a dangerous weapon. But with all current overly ECM equipped and speedy mechs i think it's justified to make both LRMs and SRMs 'viable' in speed and damage to make them also fearfull as a one rack instead of having to boat with it.

(Sorry my head explode by reading my reply by myself).

Tldr: up the speed and damage.

Edited by Sarlic, 09 September 2015 - 09:23 AM.

[627]

Remember the time whe the goto build for the a cent was triple srms? Yeah, back in the day...

I think lrms are beyond everything, i really see no way to buff them with the options we have. Only a complete redisgn of either lrms or the countless counters is the way.

SRMs, beside the (feeled?) hitreg problems should really get a buff. CoF should stay 'wide', in the end it is the shotgun of MWO but it should be faster and harder hitting.

The problem with all this is the quirk system. We lost general balancing with it and I doubt this will change much on the 22th. And even then, PGI tends to balance with a. mallet instead of a watchmaker's hammer...

[SolarCleric]

Missiles could use a little love...but......


honestly I would rather take things as they are now, then suffer through those OP LRM days where you just found a rock to hide under until most of the missiles were expended. ECM is a mess and way to op now, but I rather have that problem than seeing 8 out of 12 mechs loaded for BEAR with LRM racks bristling from every hardpoint.

[Hotthedd]

Sarlic, on 09 September 2015 - 09:21 AM, said:

I want the totally mauling damage back we got before(?) the first invasion. All mechs were slower, as just the general gameplay. But less boating.

In it's current form boating the missiles is the only way to make it as a dangerous weapon. But with all current overly ECM equipped and speedy mechs i think it's justified to make both LRMs and SRMs 'viable' in speed and damage to make them also fearfull as a one rack instead of having to boat with it.

(Sorry my head explode by reading my reply by myself).

Tldr: up the speed and damage.

And that's the trick. How do you make a single weapon good without making boating said weapon TOO good?

I would suggest looking a a TT solution:
Make LRMs fire in groups of 5, and 5 only. Boating 60 LRMs would produce 12 volleys of 5 LRMs each.

[Mister Blastman]

Sarlic, on 09 September 2015 - 09:21 AM, said:

In it's current form boating the missiles is the only way to make it as a dangerous weapon. But with all current overly ECM equipped and speedy mechs i think it's justified to make both LRMs and SRMs 'viable' in speed and damage to make them also fearfull as a one rack instead of having to boat with it.

This kind of highlights the crux of the problem with them. Back in the day 2x SRM 4 on the nose of Dragon were nasty. They tore stuff to pieces. It was nice. Now they're a joke. You're right, either boat them or they are worthless and that's the real problem. They aren't worth the tonnage or space right now because even when boated, the hitreg for them is so bad you're better off taking small lasers.

[Gas Guzzler]

Buff to SRMs get a thumbs up in my book.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

627, on 09 September 2015 - 09:29 AM, said:

Remember the time whe the goto build for the a cent was triple srms? Yeah, back in the day...

I think lrms are beyond everything, i really see no way to buff them with the options we have. Only a complete redisgn of either lrms or the countless counters is the way.

SRMs, beside the (feeled?) hitreg problems should really get a buff. CoF should stay 'wide', in the end it is the shotgun of MWO but it should be faster and harder hitting.

The problem with all this is the quirk system. We lost general balancing with it and I doubt this will change much on the 22th. And even then, PGI tends to balance with a. mallet instead of a watchmaker's hammer...

ppl freak the f out when missiles are viable beyond HAVING to boat them relentlessly. They start screaming LRMageddon and LRMpocalypse until their tears have greased the wheels enough and PGI nerfs them again. We saw it all through CB and OB

Mister Blastman, on 09 September 2015 - 09:34 AM, said:

the hitreg for them is so bad you're better off taking small lasers.

100% the issue

[Yellonet]

Missiles and ballistics should create VERY little heat. The heat they produce are transformed into gas and flames that are expelled as soon as they are fired, therefore the heat added to the mech should be insignificant.

When using 4xSRM6 isn't even close to the effectiveness of lasers even on close ranges something is off.

LRM's should be able to be fired at a selectable range, that would make them much more usable as dumb fire weapons.
When you have mostly LRM's and an enemy is playing peek-a-boo with you, you can't do anything right now.
If we had the ability to manually set the distance that the LRM's fly we could pre-fire where the enemy is likely to pop up, we could also shoot over hills/cover without a lock.
The mechanic could be that as now you get a range number when you point at something, you could then press a button to lock that range, then use for example the mouse wheel to increase or decrease the distance.
So you see an enemy pop up behind a hill and take some shots, then get back down again, as it is now you can only wait till he pops up again, dumb fire and see how the enemy just evades the missiles.
With my idea you would see the enemy, point at him to get the range, lock that (or lock the hill and then increase the range 10-20 meters), then fire when he's behind cover, he would get no warning and if he stays put he gets rained on.
Suppression fire!

Edited by Yellonet, 09 September 2015 - 09:43 AM.

[Juodas Varnas]

I also want thicker blacker smoke trails for the missiles!

Also, a possibility of missiles flying off the trajectory after reaching the maximum range (and dealing less damage), instead of just exploding mid-air for no reason.

[Khobai]

1) SRMs should hit like hammers. Instead they hit like nerf darts. IS SRM damage needs to be increased back to 2.5 per missile. Possibly even higher. Clan SRMs are probably fine because in fairness they weigh half as much as IS SRMs. All thats required to get clanners to use their SRMs is to properly nerf their way overpowered lasers.

2) Artemis is terrible for the tonnage/crit investment. Artemis needs to do more; my suggestion is for artemis to give SRMs and direct-fired LRMs an increased chance to critical hit like the targeting computer does for lasers.

3) ECM still hard counters LRMs which is total BS. ECM stealth needs to be severely nerfed. And LRMs need a severe nerf to indirect spread/tracking to make up for ECM getting nerfed. Indirect LRMs should really only be accurate if the target is TAG'd or NARC'd, otherwise they should have pretty bad tracking/spread.

4) Need MRMs and ATMs added to the game because the missile options are quite frankly pathetic and nothing fills the void between SRMs and LRMs. MRMs would be like longer range SRMs and ATMs would be like longer range Streaks.

Quote

When using 4xSRM6 isn't even close to the effectiveness of lasers even on close ranges something is off.

SRMs do generate significantly less heat than lasers. The problem isnt the heat really. The problem is the lack of damage and range compared to the lasers. If SRMs are going to be a specialized brawling weapon then its probably okay for them to have such short range, but their damage needs to be upped significantly.

Some players have said SRMs have hit detection issues but I havent noticed that at all. It seems all my SRMs hit reasonably well, they just do pathetic damage that spreads out all over the place. The low damage compared to lasers really is the biggest issue with SRMs. To make SRMs more favorable they need to buff IS SRM damage and nerf clan laser range/damage.

Edited by Khobai, 09 September 2015 - 10:04 AM.

[Sarlic]

Hotthedd, on 09 September 2015 - 09:34 AM, said:

And that's the trick. How do you make a single weapon good without making boating said weapon TOO good?

I would suggest looking a a TT solution:
Make LRMs fire in groups of 5, and 5 only. Boating 60 LRMs would produce 12 volleys of 5 LRMs each.

That's the hardest part. I agree. But i think there's a way. Like the TT rules, perphaps add a extra 'difficulty' mechanic or some kind to make boating more skilled. And i don't mean like a rediculous cooldown as we see on the gauss rifle.

Perhaps extra little heatbars when you chainfire them. Or when one volley you need to press a extra button to divide all the heat. (Just spewing some ideas here, might souns stupid but okay)

Edited by Sarlic, 09 September 2015 - 09:53 AM.

[Cyborne Elemental]

I would rather have accuracy normalized between launchers, as well as accuracy buffed a little bit on SRM's.

Damage is fine where its at IMO, but if LORE says its at 3 per missle, can't really say no to that

As far as splash?
It all depends though if they're shaped charges they really shouldn't be doing any damage unless its a direct hit, armor might take a little heat and frag from indirect, but not enough to deal any real damage.

Splash would be more of an infantry killer, which we don't have to worry about.

[Sir Wulfrick]

The issue with missiles is that for beginners they tend to be GGClose god mode rain-of-death weapons whereas in the upper tiers of comp play they're totally useless. "Balancing" them to suit one end of the scale is probably impossible without making them even more OP or even more useless at the other end of the scale. This problem is more prevalent for LRMs than probably any other weapon type. I won't pretend to have a solution as I don't use them, but this is the difficulty with getting them right.

[SpiralFace]

Missiles are the one weapon family that I firmly believe is where MWO took a backwards step from its predecessors.

I still firmly believe that as a whole, the entire way MW4 and the Battletech Firestorm Sim pods handle the Missile family is very supperior to what we have right now in the game.

There was so much depth in the system that was still accessible to the players.

SRM's still dumb fired when you didn't have the reticle over anything, but they allowed for "soft locks" to happen when you fired the weapon system where the reticle scored a direct hit scan hit on triggerpull.

Soft locking allowed SRM's to actually "home in" on their targets, but only corrected their coarse about 30-50 degrees, so at longer ranges, they became more useful, they spread the damage around the mechs more evenly because the spread adjusted when you where soft locked (but still remained tight if you dead fired.)

Streak SRM's where still valid despite soft locking because of the "safe fire" (didn't fire unless you where guaranteed a lock,) and they had infinite turn radius unlike the limited arcs of SRM's that where soft locked.

LRM's still funcitoned similarly to what you see in MWO, but they ALSO had a soft lock option, where if you pulled the trigger when the reticle is over the mech without a hard lock, the missiles would still "seek" the mech as long as you KEPT direct line of sight with the mech. If you broke LOS, your missiles would loose their lock with no chance of getting it back.

Hard locks where only really for a much higher chance of "guarnateed hits" even if the mechs sought cover behind terrain.

NARC's weren't some silly status, they where an actual beacon that attached to the mech. A mech that was narced had a PHYSICAL beacon on a mechs location. (blinked and everything.) It allowed faster hard lock times, and for soft locks, it granted soft locks to LRM's and SRM's with them only needing to have the reticle in the general vacinity of the narc beacon to get a lock, not physically on the model (Think the range you see the lock reticle on LRMs right now, but only for instant trigger pull ONLY when a mech was NARCed.)

ECM prevented hard locks just like in MWO, but the SOFT LOCK option was always there if you had direct line of sight, and if you had the SKILL to aim and fire at the precise moment your reticle is on the mech.

The MWO system for all their missile systems is so dull by comparison.

Small launchers are useless with their current stats, Large launchers are dead weight because of their spread, and the whole system itself while simple is SOO dependent on binary counters that it just makes the entire weapon family dull by comparison.

I REALLY wish they would integrate more of the depth you saw in the missile systems of the MW predecessors. Because right now, its a fairly dull system in comparison, and probably the only spot where I feel MWO has gone backwards in progress from what MW games have done before it.

[Lyoto Machida]

SpiralFace, on 09 September 2015 - 09:59 AM, said:

Missiles are the one weapon family that I firmly believe is where MWO took a backwards step from its predecessors.

I still firmly believe that as a whole, the entire way MW4 and the Battletech Firestorm Sim pods handle the Missile family is very supperior to what we have right now in the game.

There was so much depth in the system that was still accessible to the players.

SRM's still dumb fired when you didn't have the reticle over anything, but they allowed for "soft locks" to happen when you fired the weapon system where the reticle scored a direct hit scan hit on triggerpull.

Soft locking allowed SRM's to actually "home in" on their targets, but only corrected their coarse about 30-50 degrees, so at longer ranges, they became more useful, they spread the damage around the mechs more evenly because the spread adjusted when you where soft locked (but still remained tight if you dead fired.)

Streak SRM's where still valid despite soft locking because of the "safe fire" (didn't fire unless you where guaranteed a lock,) and they had infinite turn radius unlike the limited arcs of SRM's that where soft locked.

LRM's still funcitoned similarly to what you see in MWO, but they ALSO had a soft lock option, where if you pulled the trigger when the reticle is over the mech without a hard lock, the missiles would still "seek" the mech as long as you KEPT direct line of sight with the mech. If you broke LOS, your missiles would loose their lock with no chance of getting it back.

Hard locks where only really for a much higher chance of "guarnateed hits" even if the mechs sought cover behind terrain.

NARC's weren't some silly status, they where an actual beacon that attached to the mech. A mech that was narced had a PHYSICAL beacon on a mechs location. (blinked and everything.) It allowed faster hard lock times, and for soft locks, it granted soft locks to LRM's and SRM's with them only needing to have the reticle in the general vacinity of the narc beacon to get a lock, not physically on the model (Think the range you see the lock reticle on LRMs right now, but only for instant trigger pull ONLY when a mech was NARCed.)

ECM prevented hard locks just like in MWO, but the SOFT LOCK option was always there if you had direct line of sight, and if you had the SKILL to aim and fire at the precise moment your reticle is on the mech.

The MWO system for all their missile systems is so dull by comparison.

Small launchers are useless with their current stats, Large launchers are dead weight because of their spread, and the whole system itself while simple is SOO dependent on binary counters that it just makes the entire weapon family dull by comparison.

I REALLY wish they would integrate more of the depth you saw in the missile systems of the MW predecessors. Because right now, its a fairly dull system in comparison, and probably the only spot where I feel MWO has gone backwards in progress from what MW games have done before it.

Aren't SRMs semi-guided weapons in lore anyway? That "soft lock" you're talking about would make sense based on that perspective.

[Necromantion]

Stream fire? HAHAHAAHAHA...

NO.

Lyoto Machida, on 09 September 2015 - 10:00 AM, said:

Aren't SRMs semi-guided weapons in lore anyway? That "soft lock" you're talking about would make sense based on that perspective.

You cant really have a soft lock in a video game that works reliably. Basically all we would end up with is a lock with potential splash damage rolls.

[mike29tw]

I just hope we have more mission options, be it MRM or ammunition types.

I hate it when I see some missile hardpoints of a newly released mech, and my thought process immediately goes "SRM brawl-able or LRM rain-able?"

And no, IS Streak doesn't exist in my vocabulary.

[Mcgral18]

Lyoto Machida, on 09 September 2015 - 10:00 AM, said:

Aren't SRMs semi-guided weapons in lore anyway? That "soft lock" you're talking about would make sense based on that perspective.

They are; the Dead-Fire SRMs (3 damage) remove that option for more boom.


MWO's SRMs are Dead Fire, but missing 0.85 damage.