121 replies to this topic

[Madddog]

3rdworld i have to admire your dedication, no way i was going to start digging through my old novels to find a specific example. Seems to be a rampant case of "I don't have to read this thread I already know the answer" going on. To reiterate in this game Regular SRMs won't lock on for balance issues, this thread is intended to be about canon. Must modify again...

[3rdworld]

Madddog, on 16 July 2012 - 06:09 AM, said:

3rdworld i have to admire your dedication, no way i was going to start digging through my old novels to find a specific example. Seems to be a rampant case of "I don't have to read this thread I already know the answer" going on. To reiterate in this game Regular SRMs won't lock on for balance issues, this thread is intended to be about canon. Must modify again...

Just finished reading it ~3 days ago. Had a pretty good idea where the reference was.

I posted that more for the reason of a old cannon source. I did skim most of the posts, many of them where TL:DR.

The Artemis increasing the effectiveness of SRMs is the most logically argument, with novel citations giving more weight.

Balancing the game is more important though.

[Madddog]

3rdworld the second part of that post wasn't directed towards you,sorry for the misunderstanding. It was towards people that jump in and say "this is how it is" without adding any new refrences or info. In a succesfull debate you have to back up your position as you and Damascas among others have done.

Edited by Madddog, 16 July 2012 - 06:41 AM.

[shintakie]

3rdworld, on 16 July 2012 - 06:30 AM, said:

Just finished reading it ~3 days ago. Had a pretty good idea where the reference was.

I posted that more for the reason of a old cannon source. I did skim most of the posts, many of them where TL:DR.

The Artemis increasing the effectiveness of SRMs is the most logically argument, with novel citations giving more weight.

Balancing the game is more important though.

If we use books as canon then that means mechs go nuclear when they core. No one believes thats canon though for obvious reasons.

[Madddog]

Books are canon, games are not. Fusion reactors going critical like that may not really happen but who doesn't like giant explosions. If you don't you are dead inside. First time i saw a reactor go up in MWLL i had to go spend some alone time

Edited by Madddog, 16 July 2012 - 07:11 AM.

[Strongbeau]

Something to add to the guidance end of the scale (already tipped over and fallen onto the side of guidance, I know)

An interesting thing I noticed,
Streak and regular SRM's weigh the same, 100 missiles a ton with the same explosive payload, and room for a guidance system. Oddly, while weighing the same, it has more fuel then a regular SRM (it travels farther/faster according to Sarna, swore Clan SRMS travel further too) so a streak missile could actually have a smaller guidance system then a regular SRM. With the missiles weighing the same means all that extra weight of the launcher is in the launcher itself, including its advanced FCS and possibly an in-flight guidance director. Maybe the smaller guidance system of the SSRM is either more advanced and uses less space or simply has just enough electronics to follow a director's RF beam to target like with some naval missiles with a simpler terminal guidance system then a regular SRM (kind of how I imagine Artemis IV working honestly). But that's just speculation and using real life weapon technology in a fictional game Don't mind me.


Oddly, at least in the case of the SLRM-20, Streak LRM's weigh less then regular LRM's according to Sarna. (an error from sharing work on SLRM-15 article to the SLRM-20 article I'm sure, guess Sarna contributors are not always accurate). Otherwise, they weigh the same, adding to the "If LRM's have guidance, so would SRM" argument.

Sorry for beating a dead horse, just wanted to add some new data not looked at yet in this argument.

[Comguard]

If Streak SRM's are the one with Lock-On capability you would expect the ammo to be heavier because of the tracking system, not the launcher. But for some reason it has the same weight, just double the price. So guess the Streak SRM Warhead has just a special tracking system for the Streak launcher which makes it more expensive. Normal SRM-warhead has a tracking device, too. That's why it works with NARC and Artemis.

But it doesn't matter what is true because we have to see how it translates to MW:O.

I agree that Streaks and normal SRMs have to differ somehow, so I could imagine that the regular SRMs are just made dumbfire missiles to give players an incentive to buy Streak SRM2 launchers.

Maybe Artemis gives you the ability that the rockets follow your reticle, who knows.

[Woska]

Both the LRM and SRM systems are volley fire weapons. Only a portion of the missiles strike the target, even on a "hit". This is consistent with unguided rockets, or at best semi guided. Streak SRMs on the other hand only fire when they will hit, and all the missiles hit the target on a successful launch. This is a guided missile. The only thing that will prevent a hit is an AMS.

I think having all missiles being fully lock capable would over power missiles, and make Streaks completely useless. There wouldn't be enough difference in their function to warrant the extra tonnage. Besides, is it really that difficult to use unguided SRMs? It's not like the lasers or AC are guided and those seem to work just fine.

[Bloodweaver]

Connor Macleod, on 15 July 2012 - 10:33 PM, said:

Here's an idea I might throw out there. BOTH lock on. However, in order to maintain lock on for regular srms is to maintain LOS. Meaning if an enemy mech ducks behind, say a building, during firing, the srms blindly follow its targets last known appearance or impact the building to portray a basic targetting system. Dumbfired, you could have a few missiles stay on your targeting reticule, but the rest fly off in random forward directions. Artemis could decrease overall locking time so long as you maintain LOS, and if dumbfired, more missiles stay on target but not all to represent a partial Target lock-on. Otherwise they should act like regular srms, requiring a LOS. Streaks should not fire without a lock on, require a LOS to achieve lock on, but if an enemy mech ducks behind said same building, the missiles follow him aroundthe corner to portray a more advanced targeting system. Just a thought.

This is a pretty good idea, actually. Another way to make the difference between SRMs and their Streak counterparts, without making SRMs lose their lock-on capability, would be to simply make it so that missiles can crash into each other during flight. Because SRMs don't weave around in the air, like LRMs do, as shown in various videos of the game so far, they could be made so that each individual missile has a chance of smacking into another one during its short flight, thus destroying them both in mid-air before they even reach the target. The Streak version would simply prevent this from occurring - its enhanced guidance system would give the missiles an LRM-like erratic flight path, preventing any self-destructive contacts. The benefit of this approach is that it almost exactly mirrors the TT rules in spirit - SRMs have variable damage, Streaks always hit full-force.

Another way to reflect that would be with missile spread. We've seen that LRMs' inherent inaccuracy (per individual missile, not per salvo) is reflected by having the missiles impact in a spread around the target. SRMs could be made to behave the same way, with the Streak system making that spread disappear and ensuring all missiles make contact. Personally, I don't think this is as good an approach as the one above, although it's still "good enough." The reason I prefer the one above is because if this spread-based approach is taken, it conflicts quite strongly with the Artemis IV system eventually showing up. If Streaks make the missiles home better, what does Artemis IV do? The same thing, but MOAR? Doesn't make too much sense.

And finally, unguided SRMs - from what I've seen, this is the approach taken in MW:O. Which is unfortunate, because then it conflicts with rocket launchers eventually showing up. MW4 had to change the nature of rock launchers because of this. They couldn't be made to operate the same way they do in TT because they wouldn't have made any sense - SRMs already did the same thing, but gave you a lot more salvos. So instead the made the RL into something it was never supposed to be.

[Conn Man]

The Battletech Pods use the "SRM's Track" and "Streaks Only Fire With Lock." There are advantages to both weapon systems.

Streaks, since they require a lock, essentially never miss. You can actually run around with your trigger depressed and the weapon will not fire unless it has a lock. The only things that will stop a Streak after launch is AMS, or if your target managed to get behind cover. That last part is pretty hard to do though, since the missiles fly so fast.

The other advantage to steaks is you can place them in the same Target Interlock Circuit (think firing group) as other weapon types without wasting ammo. For example, you can place the Streak SRM in the same TIC as a Gauss Rifle or PPC. When engaging targets at long ranges with the Gauss, the Streaks will not fire since they are out of range. This might not make much of a different to people playing at home on a PC, but in the pods there are only three triggers to work with and this helps a lot.

Advantages to regular SRM:
You can switch off the targeting to get around AMS. You can use also them on destroyable terrain where Streaks will only fire on 'mechs.

NOTE: I'm not saying this is how it will work in MWO, or that PGI should make it work like this. (Actually everything PGI has shown us so far I am very happy with!) I'm only offering a different viewpoint to show how having both SRMs and Streaks lock did not break gameplay.

[CCC Dober]

Look guys, I know you want your cookies, but plain and simple SRMs are indeed unguided. You can replace the warheads and add Artemis, but then you are not talking about the same thing. Apples are not Oranges. Alright?

I give you two novels that are years apart to check up on this and both state SRMs are 'unguided'. No if's and but's: unguided means the opposite of guided. Okay?
1. Decision at Thunder Rift
2. The Dying Time

The only statement on sarna regarding SRM guidance refers to Artemis and Streaks. Also the fact that basic SRMs are immune to Electronic Warfare basically says it all. There is simply no guidance system to confuse because they have none. It's all there, so don't even try to sneak in free guidance systems when you actually have to pay for them.

[Teirdome]

I'm still confused why everybody equates "guidance system" to lock on. The two are not synonyms. A guidance system could be as simple as a gyroscope with some sensors to keep the missile level during flight. Or a system that tracks how long the missile is in flight to detonate it once it's out of fuel. It does not have to be a system that increases the chance the missiles will hit their target.

[Black Rock Shooter]

Woska, on 16 July 2012 - 07:25 AM, said:

Both the LRM and SRM systems are volley fire weapons. Only a portion of the missiles strike the target, even on a "hit". This is consistent with unguided rockets, or at best semi guided.

The behavior is more consistent with real-life fire and forget surface-to-surface missile systems than unguided rockets like the Katyusha. Most people who are not familiar with the way missile guidance systems work tend to believe that surface-to-surface and air-to-air guided missiles work the same. That is, once you achieve a lock there's practically no chance of missing. This is in fact not true. In the air, there is no natural background clutter that can cause detection failure to a missile's guidance system; on the ground there are plenty. This is why planes carry chaff and flares and ECM suites - to cause artificial background clutter to form. This is also why most ATGMs in existence use passive or semi-active homing.

The most persistent problem for the development of fire-and-forget surface-to-surface missile guidance systems has been consistent target recognition. A missile can lock onto a heat source (if IR-guided), reflected laser light (if laser guided), or a large metallic object (if radar guided), but it doesn't KNOW what it's locked on to. That is to say, the missile can identify a specific input (target IR emission or radar signature) but cannot distinguish the actual target from its surroundings when background clutter comes into play. An IR missile doesn't actually see a tank, but rather a thermal blob that it's been told to go towards. If the target blob suddenly changes its signature or similar blobs appear, the missile would usually lose the ability to recognize the target. A human can easily tell the difference between a giant 70-ton tank and a pickup truck, but as long as the two vehicles' engines give off the same amount of IR radiation, a missile can't. Radar-guided missiles have it tougher because even a minute trace of iron in surrounding rocks would sometimes be enough to confuse their tracking radar. This is why radars are rarely used in air-to-surface and surface-to-surface targeting. At least that's how things have been until recently. Nowadays, sensors and processors are much more advanced and true electro-optical target recognition is easily done - using the same technology as found in facial recognition cameras.

The target recognition problem counter-intuitively means that, until recently, fire-and-forget surface-to-surface missiles had LOWER accuracy than remote-controlled ones with a human in the loop. This is why the wire-guided and radio-guided variants of the US TOW missiles still require a missile "gunner" directing the missile to target. A human is much more capable at identifying and keeping track of a target than a computer. The human would still know from simple common sense that he's looking at A TANK long past the point the computer has mistaken it for a house.

The way I think this translates to SRM vs Artemis vs Streak SRM is this:

* SRMs are fire-and-forget missiles with dumb processors that could in theory just lock themselves onto a target but in reality would have problems actually identifying said target once it moved, occasionally hitting the tree next to a BattleMech rather than the 'Mech itself because they thought the tree was the 'Mech. This is because they're radar guided. Why do I think this? Because the NARC Beacon can "call" standard missiles to target, so the SRM's primary sensor must be radio-based.

* Artemis is the equivalent of a real-life radio beamriding missile. The Artemis system piggybacks on the smarter computer inside the 'Mech to direct missiles to a target by telling them to ride inside the cone of a directed microwave beam. The missiles' own guidance systems run in passive mode, looking backwards at the cone instead of forwards at the target. The missiles don't really care what's in front of them. They just fly where the guy behind them (the Artemis system) tells them to. Artemis isn't always successful because the cone formed by the beam expands as distance increases, so near the end of their flight path the missiles can hit anywhere within the CEP formed by the cone's base.

* Streak is actually a sophisticated computer system tied to an illuminating radar. The reason it stops the missiles from launching until lock has been achieved is because the BattleMech itself must lock onto the target before launching the missiles. Once the BattleMech locks on, a separate Streak radar director illuminates the target - and only the target - with a focused beam. This works similarly with Artemis except the missiles can "see" and track the very specific radar blob instead of just riding on the beam like with Artemis, or using their own dumb radar processor like regular SRMs. This is the same principle employed by the modern day warships: main radar array identifies and locks a target, separate radar director illuminates target and sends missiles at it.

Well, that's how I try to make sense of game rules in real-world terms anyway. Of course, I myself have been one of the loudest proponents against tryng that, but hey, it's fun.

[WardenWolf]

It depends what you consider in-canon. I have played MW2 (original+GB exp+mercs), MW3 (original+exp), MW4 (original+mercs) and in *none* of them did SRMs ever lock-on. They were always dumb-fire, straight-shooting missiles.

Now I've never seen a perfect answer given in TT stuff. The Streaks definitely track, but the way the text flows doesn't say 100% for-sure that the non-streak can't track / lock on at all. *HOWEVER* - I think it is the short range and small grouping sizes that keep there from being a to-hit penalty on them in TT. MRMs are shooting much further, and if the missile speed is the same then it would be harder to hit and give the enemy more time to avoid the missiles.

[Nazraith]

The difference is that if you lock on with a streak 6 rack you hit with all six missiles, no lock no fires. A regular SRM-6 rack when locked on target will hit with 2 to 6 missiles. In the TT game this is determined with a second roll of the dice to determine number of missiles. That is why streak racks are so powerful and were only available to inner-sphere in the form of streak 2 racks until Clan tech became available to reverse engineer thus producing the Streak-4 & Streak-6.

Naz

[CCC Dober]

@Black
The way NARC is described on sarna, it is an addon in terms of guidance just as much as Artemis and Streak. The definition even hints at missiles that traditionally don't have homing capabilities aka what we refer to as guidance in here. So yeah, SRMs remain unguided without its presence, same as with Streak and Artemis. The funny thing is that NARC has a condition, which basically replaces the ammo in question.

Quote

Also SRMs and LRMs equipped to track the Narc homing signal cost twice as much as standard munitions.

Edited by CCC Dober, 16 July 2012 - 08:53 AM.

[Madddog]

Much much better. Now we are discussing, and I for one am learning a little bit.

[Nazraith]

NARC is not meant to help the individual mech it is designed to help your lance mates. If you tag an enemy with NARC then all the friendly missles hit if fired at that enemy. This is extremly deadly if your lance is running heavy on LRMs and you have a fast scout mech with NARC.

Naz

[3rdworld]

CCC Dober, on 16 July 2012 - 08:13 AM, said:

Look guys, I know you want your cookies, but plain and simple SRMs are indeed unguided. You can replace the warheads and add Artemis, but then you are not talking about the same thing. Apples are not Oranges. Alright?

I give you two novels that are years apart to check up on this and both state SRMs are 'unguided'. No if's and but's: unguided means the opposite of guided. Okay?
1. Decision at Thunder Rift
2. The Dying Time

The only statement on sarna regarding SRM guidance refers to Artemis and Streaks. Also the fact that basic SRMs are immune to Electronic Warfare basically says it all. There is simply no guidance system to confuse because they have none. It's all there, so don't even try to sneak in free guidance systems when you actually have to pay for them.

I was unable to find a direct mention in The Decision at Thunder rift concerning the targeting method of SRMs. I only found they are "direct" fire missiles. Even if it does mention it, this book cannon relevancy for targeting method is questionable. In several locations in talks about getting targeting locks for energy weapons. Example:

"Grayson stayed where he was, concentrating on the targeting lock of his PPC's simple-minded-computer. When the crosshairs merged and flashed red, he pressed the firing stud. Metal chips rained from the 'Mech's body where the armor had been pierced just aft of the cockpit."

I would argue the existence of "Dead-Fire" missiles before being replaced by MRMs leads more weight to SRMs standard warhead having a guidance system, even if it is rudimentary.

"Dead-Fire Missiles were prototype weapons developed by House Kurita to offset the increasing cost of military hardware. To reduce cost, the guidance systems of standard long range and short range missiles were removed and replaced with larger warheads." Sarna.net

Edited by 3rdworld, 16 July 2012 - 10:02 AM.

[Sgt Detrik Vremoure]

Black Rock Shooter has the best case discription according to CANON. And "CANON" for Mechwarrior and Battletech comes from the Table top game originally done by FASA. Not any of the computer games or novels in the fiction line. The computer games made certian changes for game balance and the novels use artistic lisence in their discription of events. Black Rock pretty much nails the differance in guidance systems between the various missile platforms.

And I bring my knowledge from 20 years of playing the table top and owning all the original Tech readouts and other materials.