Laggy Luke, on 04 May 2016 - 01:44 AM, said:
My comment about the "lights eat assault" was sarkastic as everyone know that a well piloted assault will seldom goes down when facing a light.
In BT it is true ... but this is MWO. In BT it is a good idea to have different range brackets covered with y build. In MWO it is a bad idea.
Yes ... it is neither ... so unfortunalty it is crippled in MWO (see above)
But he is giving away his position by using the LRM. THAT will add up the chance that a light is coming.
So for delivering just marginal spread-damage you ask to get "visited" by a light ... thats also a bad "trade".
By using an LRM20 instead of a 4th SRM6 are reducing your alpha by ca. 16%. Loosing that much on a twist-and-shoot mech like the Atlas is an unnecessary handicap while gaining as close as nothing.
And comparing the spread damage of an indirect fired LRM vs. the damage a close-range ASRM will never come out in favour of the LRM. Only thing an LRM does better is farming assists.
Another thing: Without the LRM you HAVE to maneuver into your fighting range ... with the LRM you have the feeling you would be usefull beyond the optimal fighting range and don't need to get close. Observe yourself and be true: how often you found yourself relying on your LRM instead of getting close and nasty? MIght be a minor psychological effect but one i noticed on myself with other builds
Unfortunalty you dont know which map you will drop on when building your mech - so imping your build just for the chance to drop on one of those is imho not the way to go - despite the fact that on Alpine in an Atlas you are more gimped by the torso yaw of the Atlas than by a close combat loadout.
And on Polar - if not left behind - an Altas can use the trences to get close enough to the enemy. Or you just wait at your teams left flank for the enemy to come to you
Getting close to the enemy is the most difficult and most necessary thing when piloting an Atlas and a LRM won't help you to do it. Instead it gives you an "option" not to get close (see above), crippling your fighting-power (see above) and gives away your position whil trying to get close unnoticed. And for all those disadvantages you just get some spread damge (if at all - a LRM fired from nearly max range will be evaded most of the time) and perhaps an assist.
btw - you can use MLs and AC20 beyond 300 meters. And i would say even beyond 500 meters they are still more effective than a single LRM, even if its a LRM20 because of pin-point-damage.
I disagree, Having different range brakets in MW: O is a great idea and it is in the meta...
Oh, Gauss snipping Direwolf? (2 gauss rifles). What is the next set of weapons?... oh at shorter range you got 2 large pulse lasers... fantastic! but what happens if an enemy is up at brawling ranges? My lord, 4 er medium lasers!
This is the exact same construction as a Stalker.... LRM's at range... large lasers a bit closer... then Medium lasers + SRM's.
One of the benefits of mixed ranges is that you do not need heatsinks to make you able to fire all your weapons all the time. A mech on Smurfy may say 10% heat effeciency because it assumes you will be using PPC's and LRM's at point blank or using your small lasers or what ever at 1000 meters.
Divided into 2-3 range groups and you can have the firepower to **** anyone over at any range that suits you. it works quite well and I use it quite often. I normally do well in the matches as some forumers can agree with and I can't be tier 2 for using "waste of space" mechs. However the problem with those statements is any 'physical' evidence i have sounds like I'm blowing my own trumpet and anything that isn't can just be passed of as false or made up claims.
In MW: O the use of mixed weapons can be shown easily in 2 situationss, 1 to 1 comparison...
In a 1 vs 1... you are a mixed ranged mech and the enemy is a long ranged mech. Obviously since he is focused on long range he would most likely have superior firepower at range... however this is where you use your mixed weapons to your advantage, you close the gap and now you do superior "medium" range firepower over him and now will win this battle... and possibly moving closer will make it more set in stone.
(simple example) of course a dual gauss kingcrab with a few ER large lasers or PPC's will beat a King Crab which can only strike back with say an LRM 20 or a combination (eg. not boating). But if this king crab moves up, the Dual gauss king crabs weapons deal less damage to the other king crabs weapons comperatively for their heat or tonnage... ie: now you got regular large lasers firing at you... and closer up now you got AC 20's firing at you.
(trying to keep these examples condensed).
This can work vice versa as well. Close quarters will not help you defeat a close range orientated mech? Then stay your distance.
of course you can determine what you want for your range spread... you may want to have equal firepower potential across all or just want something to back you up at a certain range rather it be to soften up your target before you get there or to help out when you are not in optimal range yet (ie: a stereotypical atlas, king crab, highlander, etc) or to defend yourself when enemies get up close (ie: stereotypical gauss hunchbacks, Shadowhawks, catapults, etc). But a spread often does help and "pure" range builds faulter when something doesn't happen which they like.
Terra therma? ****. I do not have the heat effeciency for this.
Long range openess ie alpine peaks? damn, looks like my 270m max optimal range atlas will suffer.
I am a pure LRM boat (like an A1 stereotype) and got nothing for when an enemy gets within 180 meters?
there's a reason why I never complain when I drop on these maps or a battle roles out in a certain direction. Because my atlas will still give long range fire support and my Gauss Crab will still make people up close cry.
Not saying that this is the best 'role' out there however. That only completely depends on the team and may hurt if the roll of the dice is not in your favour. You won't always keep away from a dual UAC 20 hunchback IIC in your catapult at close quarters nor will you be able to get close to say a medium mech with your atlas. This game ultimately leans heavily on skill and co ordiantion then builds. You can give a noob a thunderbolt with 3 ER PPC's back in the day of the 50% quirk and he will still not get a single kill or even break 100 damage.
I can argue that having mixed ranges in MW: O is more important than in TT or in lore. But I can't really say much more then what I have stated already.
And you are saying that the colourful lasers or the sound of a big AC 20 going off won't attract a light?
Using an LRM 20 and 3 SRM 6's* vs 4 SRM 6's. The damage reduction here up close is reduced by 12 (spreaded 2's) and a 20 damage long range.
48 damage (4 x SRM 6) vs 36 damage [close] / 20 damage [range] (3 x SRM 6 + LRM 20).
However personal choice for me is that I won't even have 4 SRM 6's on an atlas S. I would personally go with (if I want to ahve strictly SRM's there or go for a close range build) will have 4 x SRM 4's as these are more heat effecient and accurate. Thus by extension I would rather have 3 SRM 4's and an LRM 20 then an LRM 20 and 3 SRM 4's.
However I would rather do 3 SRM 6's in the Atlas DDC. It's all up to personel prefference.
And gaining close to nothign? I won't call 7-10 tons of weapon(s) and 15-20+ damage at range nothing. It's something, Quite a lot of something.
Personally if I have LRM's I will not lean heavily on it much as I do in my Timberwolf and how a timberwolf historically is done.
The only times I would stay behind cover and lob LRM's is when I most likely lost both my arms, one of my side torsos ,maybe legged, and cored everywhere else (more or less).
because lobbing 15-20+ damage of LRM's at an enemy is far more useful then taking 1 step into tghe open around the corner and getting killed by a few small lasers or a single ER PPC shot from a spider on the other side of the map.
That or when it's stupid to go into the open that not even a brawler or juggernaut will go in MW: O without dying 2-3 seconds less and I use the lRM 20's to give fire in this stalemate or to soften them up... perhaps destroying that hunchbacks AC 20 will turn the tide into our favour if we do push.
I also do not carry enough ammo to sit back and LRM all day. I didnt' carry like 5 orf 10 tons of LRM ammo for my singular LRM 15-20. It is more like 2-4 as I am not planning to use it that heavily.
I have spent a lot of time getting into the fight and I must say that big AC 20 is much more attractive for me to go into close range then the LRM is for far range...
Then again I am not the smae as you or anyone else. Heck- I am very unique for some people and my friends won't stop bugging me to be a Doctor of Psychology or Psychological studies (however I suck at English it being my 2nd language and I am not looking forward to all the writing. I am currently persueing my goal of being an traditional Artist but I am getting heavily off topic)
I grew up with battletech and I saw these advantages and traits in all the past games. I would carry an LRM 20 in my Atlas-S2 in MW:4 and I would carry it in my Atlas D (?) in MW2.
The MW4 tutorial tougth me the importances of a mixed load out with the Bushwacker (medium pulse lasers, AC 10, and LRM 10 and 5) but also tought me how focusing is also good and how some unison builds are an extreme and can perform great. (ie a black knight being 100% energy).
Sure, in those games LRm's did full damage up close and you may consider an LRM 20 an SSRM 10 that goes up to 1000 meters.
Also very low flight path, can not indirect fire... but maybe it's my experience here that tought me to... well. "be brave' with LRM's I guess? I mean the way I use LRM baots no matter if I am 20 tons or 100 tons I often do quite well but between those two points there is dozens of play styles, combinations. etc... I really want to write an LRM guide on the forums but the thing is my first attempt was so big that underlines are now just brackets and u's as the forum can't handle it that big and images started breakign... I wrote a very short hand image version with some ky points of LRM pro and cons but that only has 15 views atm....
But anyway. I never stay put behind a wall and LRM away when it would have been better to push forward.
Even on my LRM boats with strong 'back up weapons" i do push in if it's the best idea such as my LRM... highlander I think? I remember it has like over a total of 40 or 50 LRM's, a few medium lasers, and an AC 20 I believe (I should check again.)
Because that Ac 20 and pair of medium lasers in some situations is worth it to push in with your LRM boat then it may be to stay far behind.
But yes. I can't speak for everyone what happens if they have an LRM. For all I know if I gave you a kingcrab loaded to the prim with ac 20's, medium pulse lasers, and SRM's and give you just a single LRM 5 and you end up covering behind a wall 700 meters away then I guess I must be one of a kind...
All I know is this psychological 'disadvantage' doesn't strike me at all.
Meanwhile isn't the whole meta based particularly on some maps? You can't tell me that the say timberwolf meta will work great on terra therma, caustic valley, tourmaline, etc? which 3-4 hot maps out there in quick play that sure is quite a hot maps to pretend they do not exist.
The thing is with a mixed weapon load out you have the potential to do well in more maps then if you are focused.
Long range primary map? You can still participate.
Short range primary map? You can still participate.
Hot map? You can still participate (with mixed weapon type build)
Cold map? You can now use less heat effecient weapons at closer ranges (ie instead of reserving your PPC's for 400 m+ shots, Fire it more often or fire at it at brawling range, With increased cooling that extra 10 damage won't hurt to bad)
etc...
Meanwhile if you are in say a pure brawler, sniper, energy boat, etc. you can't really participate to effectively on most maps... especially that in some rare conditions there is a potential to literally not do any damage at all... ie an LRM boat on HPG manifold where the entire enemy team is under the HPG.
In polar highlands yea, Trenches do help a lot...
But 1 guy spotting you... 1 narcer... one UAV... and there goes any cover you got against LRM's... which is why this is my favourite map in MW: O and I wish more are like this. I find it funny how most maps conveniently have cover from everything... Now if only we got a very large canyon map based on tukayiid or a map like this on a shalow sea where most of the map is open water with a few islands far and between with maybe a large one somewhere iwth a volcano (making say a 10-20 degrees map with water bonus for leg heatsinks and some land masses being in the 50-90 degree range but with cover... I love this map proposal already but again I am going of topic...)
But as mentioned earlier. skill and co ordination provels. You can be at a disadvantage and still come out on top and that's why I love battletech and MW: O... not other PvP games or franchises where "oh, you got a 'better' gun? welp I'm dead now" or "oh, that guy got a more advance vehicle. stupid MM".
Also saying a medium laser at 500 meters is more effective then an LRM 20 is silly. I am pretty sure at those ranges a single LRM missile or two hitting the same component will do more damage then a medium laser doing all the damage to one component and that's just ignoring the fact the LRM damaged multiple sections!
I would like to see who would win in a fight between you and me if you had a single or even a dozen medium lasers and I had an LRM 20 with the fight forced at 500 meters apart...
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