47 replies to this topic

[Hoakin]

Really, there isnt a damn single match which not a single enemy has rockets equipped.

Why are they able to hit me even when im on cover? Really, rockets being able to target you outside of view its really REALLY cheap and unfair.

Its like the only actual way to play the game.

I try to scout, rocketed, i try to ambush, rocketed, ******* everything in the game is rockets.


EDIT: This is my new account.

Edited by Hoakin, 13 May 2016 - 08:36 AM.

[Digital_Angel]

They really aren't. They are super effective at lower tiers until opponents learn how to counter them, but after that not all that great outside of limited circumstances.

Discussed in length here recently http://mwomercs.com/...-so-crazy-good/

[Rogue Jedi]

assuming you mean Long Range missiles and not SRMs or SSRMs,

Long Range Missiles require a target lock to have a realistic chance of hitting a moving target, if any member of the enemy team has you targeted the LRM user can get a missile lock and their LRMs can track you.

to prevent LRMs from hitting you here are the options;
put a tall object between you and the missiles,
stand under a platform so the missiles cannot hit you,
make sure no enemy can get a lock on you by breaking line of sight for at least 3 seconds ^{(Radar Deprivation will break it instantly unless the enemy has advanced target decay equiped)},
take an AMS ^{(a single AMS will usualy destroy 5 LRMs out of an LRM volly, but some MEchs can take upto 3 AMS, and if your whole team was to take AMS they would be effectively invulnerable to missiles)}
stick close to ECM to make it much tougher for the enemy to get a lock
put terrain between you and the enemy so they cannot get a lock
if you get hit by NARC ^{(there will be a warning in the HUD)} get close to ECM or get into LRM proof cover as described above

any 1 of the above will work, as you can see there are many ways to counter LRMs, and if you stick around eventually they will become second nature.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 13 May 2016 - 09:59 AM.

[mailin]

In the above list, Rogue Jedi forgot my favorite way of avoiding lrms. Get right in an enemy's face when you get the missile warning. They'll slam into his back. Tons of fun.

Edited by mailin, 13 May 2016 - 12:51 PM.

[zudukai]

mailin, on 13 May 2016 - 12:18 PM, said:

In the above list, Rogue Jedi forgot my favorite way of avoiding lrms. Get right in an enemy's face when you get the missile warning. They'll slam into your his back. Tons of fun.

yeah LRM's have a minimum range at 180m, Clan LRM's (the blue ones) technically don't but close range c-LRM usually works poorly because of how little they track, the arc they fly, and the scaling reduced damage.

Edited by zudukai, 13 May 2016 - 07:52 PM.

[Fobhopper]

Hoakin, on 13 May 2016 - 08:36 AM, said:

Really, there isnt a damn single match which not a single enemy has rockets equipped.

Why are they able to hit me even when im on cover? Really, rockets being able to target you outside of view its really REALLY cheap and unfair.

Its like the only actual way to play the game.

I try to scout, rocketed, i try to ambush, rocketed, ******* everything in the game is rockets.


EDIT: This is my new account.

First of all, LRM's are a good weapon. Powerful at lower tiers of play, and lambasted and frowned upon like a great Viking of Disapproval. They really aren't over power, but they are really useful. But in order for them to be useful, you need a target lock, something that can only be had if you are standing out in the open and making yourself a target.

You want to stop, or at least mitigate the dangers of LRMs?

• First off, equip an AMS on your mechs (if they can fit it) LRM 5 and 10 missiles cant get past it, and only a few from LRM 15's will make it through, and LRM 20's will only be a minor danger.
  
• Second, FIND SOME DAMN COVER! if you can find a building/wall/ridge that you can hide behind, you can easily ride out an LRM storm.
  
• Third, since they are only useful if they can get a lock on you (which requires LOS on you, or someone on their team that can see you so they can lock) shoot them and force them to look away and break the lock.
  
• Fourth, you can just side step them (unless they have LOS on you). LRM's have an incredibly predictable path of fire. Just move perpendicular to the direction they are coming from (So if the missiles are coming at you from 12 o'clock, move to either 3 or 6 o'clock and the missiles will miss you). If you can even move diagonally (4 and 7 o'clock respectively) its even better at dodging missiles.

Also, LRM's are missiles (they have a guidance system), unguided missiles are simply rockets.

LRM = missile
SRM = rocket
SSRM= missile

[Zerberus]

^^ Rogue and Fob basically covered it.

Ton for Ton, LRMs are actually one of the weakest wepons in the game, in no small part becasue htere are numerous hard counters to them. And they require large amounts of ammunition and extra equipment /modules to truly be used effectively. Ironically, the extra equipment needed to make them semi-viable actually weighs more than the countermeasures do

But the psychological effect, especially on (no insult intended) less experienced players is huge. They hear "incoming missile" and instantly panic, in teh process forgetting that the ECM atlas to their left is just a few steps away as is the cliff face behind them.

Your assumption of "Why are they able to hit me even when im on cover? Really, rockets being able to target you outside of view its really REALLY cheap and unfair." is unfortunately patently false.

If you have actual cover (i.e. standing with something higher than your mech between you and the missiles) and not just concealment, you will not get hit. LRMS cannot fly through solid objects, these are not BunkerBusters

And for them to target you AT ALL, at least one member of the enemy team must not only have a direct line of sight to you, but he must also actively have you selected as his target, in which case he is probably shooting at you as well. Shooting HIM will usually stop the rain.

There are however 2 exceptions to this second part:

1. You were hit with a NARC beacon (basically a large, slow SRM with a radio transmitter instead of a warhead), you will be targetable for 30 seconds by all enemy mechs. this means someone with a NARC launcher was less than 400 yards away from you very recently

2. There is an enemy UAV overhead that is 180m or less away from you. These allow targeting of any mech within their radius, and can be shot down. This is a consumable module that can be purchased for 40k cbills /use, can be used 1 time per match per mech that has one equipped. This of course also means that an enemy mech that had this module equipped was 180m or less from your current position in the last 30 seconds.

That said, hard cover still counters missiles directly, as does AMS (which ironically enough CAN shoot through solid objects) and walking near an ECM mech cloaks the NARC beacon, rendering it useless (unless the ECM mech is the one that got NARCed, in which case he needs to find another ECM mech who´s bubble he can stand in until it falls off.)

Oh, yeah, falls off, good point, and something many forget *EDIT* The following italicized statement may or may not still be possible, general consensus seems to be that it no longer is, will test soon in a PM just to be absolutely sure and will update the statement to reflect the results. Until such time as it is confirmed to still be possible I do not recommend trying it outside of a controlled environment:

a NARC beacon can be shot off of a NARCed mech by a teammate. Assuming of course he knows what he is doing and can aim good enough. They have 3 or 4 health if memory serves.

The more you get to know the maps and their layouts, the less dangerous LRMs will become over time. Equipping countermeasures (AMS can be mounted on all but a handful of mechs, as stated above some can mount up to 3) will also help significantly.

It gets better with experience, trust me... I Love to throw LRMs around like confetti in Quickplay and piss off as many people on teh enemy team as humanly possible, but I almost never get hit by them myself, and I don´t think I´ve died to them since 2013 when they truly were massively OP for a time due to a borked splash damage code and always seeking out the center Torso, basically causing 1 missile to do 2 damage to every section of the target mech , including the head.


One closing note: while LRMS are de facto a below average weapons system, it is NOT necessarily a good idea to charge a mech carrying large numbers of them (30+tubes) from a range of over 4-500m, becasue if the LRM boat has a TAG laser (or his buddy behind you has one) and Artemis guidance he will probably melt you due to the much tighter spread the direct LoS and TAG offers him, basically putting almost all of his missiles in your center torso. Even without artemis and TAG it´s not a particularly good idea... anything outside effective Medium laser range is basically guaranteed suicide or at least a few bigass holes in your armor. You have been warned

Edited by Zerberus, 16 May 2016 - 10:40 AM.

[TooDumbToQuit]

I will sometimes carry a 5 LRM just for the "Incoming Missiles" sign to go off in their cockpit. I'm doing LOS and I do not care if they hit, I want him to move or lose focus for a split second and then I shoot my PPC etc.

[Zerberus]

LikeUntoGod, on 13 May 2016 - 01:02 PM, said:

I will sometimes carry a 5 LRM just for the "Incoming Missiles" sign to go off in their cockpit. I'm doing LOS and I do not care if they hit, I want him to move or lose focus for a split second and then I shoot my PPC etc.

Yep, I carry at least a 5 and 1 ton of ammo on most mechs that can for exactly this reason. Get the other guy to make a mistake, and capitalize on it

[Rogue Jedi]

Fobhopper, on 13 May 2016 - 12:29 PM, said:

equip an AMS on your mechs (if they can fit it) LRM 5 and 10 missiles cant get past it, and only a few from LRM 15's will make it through, and LRM 20's will only be a minor danger.

a single AMS can take out more than 10 missiles if they fly over you, but if they are targeted on you, against Inner Sphere LRMs a single AMS can take out 5 missiles from a volley, against Clan they it can take out 7 from a volley due to the fact they fire in a stream giving the AMS longer to work.

[Fobhopper]

Rogue Jedi, on 13 May 2016 - 01:11 PM, said:

a single AMS can take out more than 10 missiles if they fly over you, but if they are targeted on you, against Inner Sphere LRMs a single AMS can take out 5 missiles from a volley, against Clan they it can take out 7 from a volley due to the fact they fire in a stream giving the AMS longer to work.

A single AMS isn't meant for you to just sit there and take LRM's all day long. If you are actually moving (as you should if you have incoming missiles) it takes a little longer for those missiles to reach you, and thus gives the AMS slightly more time to shoot. An AMS is meant to be used in conjunction with you getting your *** out of the damn firing lines, not sit in the meadows while hellfire rains down on you. If you are being a static target, the AMS is only mediocre at best (just like the pilot), but if you are moving, that means the missiles need to make course corrections which means it takes longer for them to hit you and so your AMS can take out a whole CLRM10 volley out like a champ, and maybe you get pinged by 2 CLRM15. For standard LRM10, if you are moving then your AMS should take out all of them. And prevent all but roughly 3-5 (depending on artemis) of an LRM15 if you are actually moving at least 55kph.

A standard LRM only has 8 course corrections, meaning that its easier for an AMS to take out if you are on the move. an LRM with Artemis upgrade has 12 course corrections, meaning it is much more accurate (roughly 33% more accurate, depending on if you have LOS or not, a major factor). So if you are moving, in a diagonally backwards position, it takes missiles longer to reach you and means your AMS has much more time to shoot them down.

[Rogue Jedi]

Fobhopper, on 13 May 2016 - 01:31 PM, said:

A single AMS isn't meant for you to just sit there and take LRM's all day long. If you are actually moving (as you should if you have incoming missiles) it takes a little longer for those missiles to reach you, and thus gives the AMS slightly more time to shoot.

good point, I actually did some testing in private matches ^{(using my main and an alt account)} to determine how many missiles an AMS could take out but I never took manoeuvring into account, and it would have been near impossible to do so considering I was manning computers in 2 different rooms.

[IQcreditscore]

Lrm's are stupid good in tier 4 and 5 especially if you get your own spots and move instead of sitting back at 800m. In tier 3 they start to taper off although there are the adherents in catapults etc that will annoy you. A lot of maps cover is available and missiles are difficult to use or less effective. Mining colony comes to mind as does say terra therma where point of attack is either close or with a lot of cover and corners making it tough.

I enjoyed "skill tubing" in the hunchback with the quirks that fires lrm10's every couple seconds or less. For about 10 matches then it felt like I was learning nothing since lrms are pretty abc to figure out. Now it sits for the most part in a bay.

Once in a great while a spammy build lrm user gets annoying if he keeps targeting me and keeps me in cover, which is rare. I thank god I did not play assaults for my first mechs but went lights to meds to heavies. tier 5 is brutal on slow assaults cept ecm equiped atlases.

At least i see less in tier 3 but have only played for a little over a month so maybe have been just lucky.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

For the record: LRMs are still viable at higher tiers, they are just much much harder to use.

The irony is that LRMs probably require the highest skill set to use at higher tiers.

[mailin]

Another point about lrms. At lower tiers, not every pilot is fully understands everything about positioning. If an enemy is consistently firing lrms from one area, it may mean that they have a single mech over there who is nowhere near his team mates. If you can use cover to get in close to him (less that 180m for IS lrms and point blank for clan lrms) the lrms will do little or no damage and you can possibly take him out without much trouble. Just be cautious about this.

Whenever you see an enemy spewing lrms, try to get within their minimum range and take them out.

[Tesunie]

Rogue Jedi, on 13 May 2016 - 01:42 PM, said:

good point, I actually did some testing in private matches ^{(using my main and an alt account)} to determine how many missiles an AMS could take out but I never took manoeuvring into account, and it would have been near impossible to do so considering I was manning computers in 2 different rooms.

I've tried to tell people this information before, but no one believes me...

From personal experience, I've seen a single AMS system (with basically perfect positioning to do so, unlucky for me) eat up an entire LRM15 volley. I know this because it's happened to me. Some of my mechs at one time use to have a single LRM15 launcher for indirect team assistance and for long range capabilities (worked well for the time). I once had a match were a single AMS kept eating all my LRMs I shot out at another target.

However, on average, if the LRMs are aimed at you, they will probably take out 5 LRMs (per batch, however many that is in a given time frame, not per launcher, just FYI). If you are in front of the targeted mech, it can take out more LRMs, upwards to 15 from my experience, possibly even 20! (I haven't seen it yet, but I wouldn't disbelieve it.)

Part of people's misconception with AMS is they commonly see it as effecting only themselves and not the entire team (AKA: only see/say it takes out 5 LRMs at a time). The other part is, many LRM users "boat" LRMs, shooting upwards of 40-80 LRMs per launch. A single AMS vs 80 LRMs targeted on you only cancels 5 of those LRMs. This means that 75 still can/will hit. (Thinking in the "typical person" manner.)

However, if you are not the target and in prime position, that single AMS can cancel at most (average) 15 LRMs, knocking that 80 LRM swarm down to 65 LRMs (most likely). If a team has two or three (we'll even give a 5 for target, 10 for someone nearby, and a 15 for good positioning), it can reduce a swarm of LRMs from 80 down to 50. If a whole team does it...

Edited by Tesunie, 13 May 2016 - 08:15 PM.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Hoakin, on 13 May 2016 - 08:36 AM, said:

Really, there isnt a damn single match which not a single enemy has rockets equipped.

Why are they able to hit me even when im on cover? Really, rockets being able to target you outside of view its really REALLY cheap and unfair.

Its like the only actual way to play the game.

I try to scout, rocketed, i try to ambush, rocketed, ******* everything in the game is rockets.


EDIT: This is my new account.

So yeah, LRMs. There's real-world precedent for that non-line-of-sight thing...

Remember back in the 80s and early 90s, with the US Army, when they still had OH-58Cs in Apache attack helicopter units, with the MMS on them? Whole point of that was, that the smaller aircraft got LoS on the target and designated it, and the bigger (read: MORE EXPEN$IVE) aircraft sat behind cover in another direction and fired. Even when the AGM-114 Hellfire missiles started coming in, the target's buddies had no idea where they were being spotted from. Glorious. Kinda like, OH, I dunno, LRMs maybe?

FWIW, the AGM-114C weighed something like 80-ish pounds each. The AGM-114F (longer range, and longer in physical size due to the bigger rocket engine, but otherwise identical) weighed a bit more, but it wasn't unusual to be able to load them one-at-a-time by one's self. According to BattleTech and MWO and all that, the missiles have shrunk a bit in weight at least (80 pounds times 180 missiles means the better part of a ton WITHOUT an ammunition handling system, which we just can't allow) and also in range (I believe the AGM-114C had an unclassified range of 6km or so, to our LRM's 1km).

Really, one could argue that, in some ways, the technology of the fictional 31st Century isn't even as good as that of the real-life late 20th.

ANYHOW, yes, non-line-of-sight firing of guided munitions is a thing. I'll tell you a little secret, though: SOMEONE has to get line of sight on you, or get a NARC onto you before breaking LoS, or get a UAV overhead near you, in order for anyone to lock LRMs on to you. So, the first step to avoiding LRMs is SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. If you've got INCOMING MISSILES flashing across the top of your HUD, you've been spotted by SOMEONE or SOMETHING. You'll want to address that immediately, and in the longer term, learn to AVOID that if at all possible.

Also, follow that link in Tesunie's signature above. Since you mention scouting in a post about LRMs, it's probably going to be helpful info for you...

[Koniving]

Actually missiles are correctly weighted if you take out pgi's meddling. Lrms at 120 per ton, factoring the ammo bib, safety measures and part of the feed system... And that the missiles are supposed to be the size of stinger missiles CV. Mech standard lrms/srms are man portable and used by infantry in smaller volumes. Extremely limited for foot infantry and light power armor, while battle armor and mechanized squads (cycles to tracked trucks which still strangely count as infantry) have them in better numbers. There's a lrm-1 and lrm-2 for battle armor, elementals and protomechs. Also have seen infantry units of 10 12 with Lrm 5 (5 guys with launchers, 5 ammo men). Squads of 7 occasionally have a single SRM launcher.

Edited by Koniving, 16 May 2016 - 02:15 AM.

[Zerberus]

Koniving, on 14 May 2016 - 01:26 AM, said:

Actually missiles are correctly weighted if you take out pgi's meddling. Lrms at 120 per ton, factoring the ammo bib, safety measures and part of the feed system... And that the missiles are supposed to be the size of stinger missiles CV. Mech standard lrms/srms are man portable and used by infantry in smaller volumes. Extremely limited foot infantry, battle armor and mechanized squads in better numbers. There's a lrm-1 and lrm-2 for battle armor, elementals and protomechs. Also have seen infantry units of 10 with Lrm 5 (5 guys with launchers, 5 ammo men).

I would not want to be the ammo guy, all the work, none of the fun

[Koniving]

Zerberus, on 14 May 2016 - 02:22 AM, said:

I would not want to be the ammo guy, all the work, none of the fun

I agree, but very necessary.

Also seems it's 12 men in that unit. There's a section command and a runner, too. (Runners keep contact going between sections and platoon leaders, often not detailed.

Interestingly, more common are units with mostly auto rifles and a single srm-2 launcher wielded by one man with ammo in tow by a second man. It baffles me is these are depicted as much smaller, and yet yields the same damage as an srm-2 and all I can think of is that this AR sized launcher and it's hip pack missile remote control (for quick mid-flight course correction) must be able to be reloaded and fired several times in 10 seconds, equalling the same damage or there must be more than one guy using one... Or the official art is so blatantly wrong about it.

I'm on an Android and so the picture button isn't available.
http://assets-cloud....nal/3178767.jpg

This one pretty much confirms it's supposed to be just one guy with an srm launcher.
http://assets-cloud....nal/3178765.jpg