29 replies to this topic

[Impyrium]

Guess what?

You were just hired by PGI as a co-designer to fill a gap caused by an exiting employee. One of your first jobs is to come up with an initial proposal for an LRM mechanical redesign.

It's well known that LRMs aren't a popular weapon in the game, and Russ is looking for a way they might be improved. Specifically, your goal is to come up with something that makes LRMs a viable, useful weapon system both in casual and competitive play. It needs to alleviate the problems players have with the current mechanic, including a lack of control and binary nature of counters, as well as still being intuitive and easy to use.

Depending on how extreme the plan is, it might need to take into account how other missile weapons in-game work.

At this point you needn't worry about whether it's technically viable- the proposal will be run past the engineers at a late date to judge if it's possible.

However, Russ made it very clear in your morning meeting that if you wasted his time in your design proposal telling him how bad the current system is (hint: he knows already), or that his lead designer doesn't know what he's doing (hint: he does), or indeed anything other than a useful idea to run past him, he'll fire your *** into the middle of next week.

In other words, let's see what your ideal idea would be to redesign LRMs is. Not how much you hate the current system, or to disagree with somebody else, just purely your idea.

Ready, go!

[Felicitatem Parco]

Look, the current system is completely borked. I don't know how anyone would design something this bad
It has polarized the playerbase, has top-spenders leaving the game, an-

-wait a sec. I can't log onto my company email account. Why did my access badge stop working? Can someone open the door please? HEY! Is that a box of my stuff from my desk?!?!

Edited by Prosperity Park, 17 June 2016 - 08:12 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Eh, honestly I just don't work well thinking about blue sky idealistic "what if" mechanics. "Imagine" is a great song, but to get to paradise requires working with what we have now, ya know?

That said, a few things I would look at:


- LRMs would fire in 2 distinct Modes: Direct Fire/Indirect Fire.

- Direct fire is LoS, and LRMs fire at a flat trajectory, with a much higher base velocity.
- Direct Fire also acquire locks much faster, enhanced of course by NARC/TAG
- Direct Fire, all LRM Racks would use the current LRM10 Spread Pattern. Artemis would tighten this.

- Indirect Fire, is no LoS, possible by Spotter and or/NARC, UAV/ TAG
- Indirect fire is arcing trajectory, lower speed while warheads triangulate target.
- Indirect require longer to acquire lock, unless active NARC or TAG are present
- Indirect Fire, All Racks would use the current LRM20 Spread Pattern. Artemis would have no affect, but TAG or NARC would tighten it to the current LRM15 spread pattern.

- All LRM racks would have closer Coodowns, with the difference between the 5-20 being maybe 1 second. IS LRM5s start at maybe a 4.5 second cooldown, LRM10 at 4.75, 15s at 5s and 20s at 5.25s.
- The Higher the number of racks, the longer it takes to achieve lock on (as the targeting and tracking system attempts to coordinate multiple fire solutions) making boating huge numbers of tiny racks a bit less effective over Larger Racks and giving limited Missile Hardpoint Mechs some sort of compensation against boat mech.
- ECM does not block Missile Locks, but does increase lock on times for Indirect Fire, and does negate any bonuses for NARC, TAG, Artemis in tightening spread.
Missiles focus where the pipper is. Pipper ON Target is required to be considered Direct Fire. Thus just keeping the "basic vicinity" lock would still allow for hits, but as indirect fire, with the worst spread pattern.

I'm sure I have missed a few things, and some numbers would need tweaking, but that is my bare bones proposal. It wouldn't change the face of the weapon system so drastically as to be unrecognizable, but I think would make them a lot more viable and interesting, while requiring skill to use effectively (unless of course, one is of the twitch masses that think any lock on weapon is automatically no skill. But I tend not to worry myself too much with the opinion of stupid and or ignorant people).

[Cementi]

Ill bite.

First off I would increase missile speed to 600 m/s as a rough estimate. My goal would be to make it so that on a perfect flat plane at the 1000m max it would take 2 seconds for the missiles to impact even with the arcing trajectory.

Next for indirect fire I would drasticly increase the spread. Obviously testing would be needed but a starting number would be say 100%. Landing any missiles via indirect fire in table top was a pain in the rear. Artemis, tag and narc will reduce that spread value but 10% for each system used but thats it. However the missiles would become fire and forget. No need to face that direction for the entire travel time. Ideally my goal would be for only about 20% of a standard LRM rack to be able to hit a target with indirect fire.

However if you have direct line of sight the missile spread would drasticly reduce and attempt to converge on the component you aim for but only if you aim. If you have LOS but do not aim they act as if they were fired indirectly. You still will never get 100% accuracy but maybe 50% on the targeted component and the rest on adjacent components depending on spread. Increase that to say 70% with artemis, tag, or narc, 80% with two of those systems and 90% with all three. This of course is under ideal conditions where you fire the missiles while having line of sight and hold your aim for the entire travel time. The biggest thing that would be have to be tested would be how quickly the missiles converge while aiming.

Clan missiles would gain a true no minimum range and remove the damage falloff mechanic.

Is missiles minimum range would change drasticly. Missiles would leave the launchers and go to full spread almost immediately. 10 m or something. Missiles would not begin to converge untill they hit 200m. Thereafter they would converge at a rate of 33% (100% being what their best spread can be depending on what systems are used. Stock, artemis, tag, and narc) per 100m traveled so that LRM's direct aim gets a 500M sweet spot. Less and you will not get full convergance. More will still get you that convergance but at the price of longer face time and the fact that the target will have time to move (though not much). If you stop aiming during the flight time the missles would spread at the same rate they converged.

How I see it playing out for the aiming convergance idea.

A mech 500m from target has LOS on a target and while aiming CT fires an LRM 20. He holds his aim for the full second it takes his missiles to travel to the target. He does 10 points to the CT and the other 10 points are spread out over the the two side torso's.

The same senario but this time .5 seconds after the LRM's are fired the mech comes under fire and the pilot chooses to torso twist. For the last 250m to the target the missiles have no direct guidance and revert to indirect mode and the spread had only just begun to converge. The remaining distance is more than enough for them to spread back out and act as an indirect shot.

*edit* Knew I forgot something. After reading your post Bishop I noticed I forgot cooldown times. All LRM launchers would have the same cooldown. Sorry LRM 5 boaters they were not meant to be better than 20 racks. Just more efficient tonnage wise.

Edited by Cementi, 17 June 2016 - 08:50 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Prosperity Park, on 17 June 2016 - 08:11 AM, said:

Look, the current system is completely borked. I don't know how anyone would design something this bad
It has polarized the playerbase, has top-spenders leaving the game, an-

-wait a sec. I can't log onto my company email account. Why did my access badge stop working? Can someone open the door please? HEY! Is that a box of my stuff from my desk?!?!

thanks for contributing.

[WarHippy]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 June 2016 - 08:27 AM, said:

Eh, honestly I just don't work well thinking about blue sky idealistic "what if" mechanics. "Imagine" is a great song, but to get to paradise requires working with what we have now, ya know?

That said, a few things I would look at:


- LRMs would fire in 2 distinct Modes: Direct Fire/Indirect Fire.

- Direct fire is LoS, and LRMs fire at a flat trajectory, with a much higher base velocity.
- Direct Fire also acquire locks much faster, enhanced of course by NARC/TAG
- Direct Fire, all LRM Racks would use the current LRM10 Spread Pattern. Artemis would tighten this.

- Indirect Fire, is no LoS, possible by Spotter and or/NARC, UAV/ TAG
- Indirect fire is arcing trajectory, lower speed while warheads triangulate target.
- Indirect require longer to acquire lock, unless active NARC or TAG are present
- Indirect Fire, All Racks would use the current LRM20 Spread Pattern. Artemis would have no affect, but TAG or NARC would tighten it to the current LRM15 spread pattern.

- All LRM racks would have closer Coodowns, with the difference between the 5-20 being maybe 1 second. IS LRM5s start at maybe a 4.5 second cooldown, LRM10 at 4.75, 15s at 5s and 20s at 5.25s.
- The Higher the number of racks, the longer it takes to achieve lock on (as the targeting and tracking system attempts to coordinate multiple fire solutions) making boating huge numbers of tiny racks a bit less effective over Larger Racks and giving limited Missile Hardpoint Mechs some sort of compensation against boat mech.
- ECM does not block Missile Locks, but does increase lock on times for Indirect Fire, and does negate any bonuses for NARC, TAG, Artemis in tightening spread.
Missiles focus where the pipper is. Pipper ON Target is required to be considered Direct Fire. Thus just keeping the "basic vicinity" lock would still allow for hits, but as indirect fire, with the worst spread pattern.

I'm sure I have missed a few things, and some numbers would need tweaking, but that is my bare bones proposal. It wouldn't change the face of the weapon system so drastically as to be unrecognizable, but I think would make them a lot more viable and interesting, while requiring skill to use effectively (unless of course, one is of the twitch masses that think any lock on weapon is automatically no skill. But I tend not to worry myself too much with the opinion of stupid and or ignorant people).

I think I agree with everything but the underlined part. Even with the increased velocity and flat line trajectory LRMs are still an inferior direct fire weapon so I see no reason to gimp them by requiring dead on aim and face time with an enemy who is probably firing vastly superior weapons at you. Unless I misunderstood what you were saying.

On a side note it looks like indirect fire is still possible with just a spotter like now and doesn't necessarily need a Tag/Narc/etc.? I hope that is the case personally because that is usually where I have a hard time finding agreement with a revised LRM system. Essentially taking away indirect fire because others didn't bring extra equipment while direct fire is still mostly inferior to other direct fire weapons makes LRMs even more useless than now.
*edit* Post below me is an example of what I am talking about.

Edited by WarHippy, 17 June 2016 - 09:44 AM.

[Lykaon]

Here is my take on LRM improvements.

Direct fire LRM use,where the target is directly visable to the launching mech:

Lock on time reduced
Projectile speed largely increased
Missile spread reduced
Trajectory flattened

Purpose of these changes: The function of these changes is to make LRMs more competative against conventional direct fire weapons (ACs PPCs etc). The current LRM mechanics create a clear disadvantage to using them against a target that is actively returning fire with a more conventional projectile weapon.

LRM indirect fire (firing on a target that is not within line of sight to the launching mech.

In order for a target to be valid for LRM indirect fire the target must be spotted with appropriate targeting equipment.
The following items are to be designated as spotting equipment.

Clan Active Probe or Beagle Active Probe equiped mech with line of sight to the target
TAG activley marking the target
active NARC attached to target
Command Console equiped mech with line of sight to the target
UAV with line of sight to the target

Purpose of these changes: With the previous improvements to LRMs as direct fire weapons some limitations may need to be placed on indirect fire to balance their use. The need for specific spotting equipment reinforces team work and role warfare.Given the volume of potential spotting equipment the functionality of indirect fire will not be heavily compromised if players meet the needs of the new mechanics.

In addition to new targeting restrictions the following changes will also need to be made.

LRM projectile speed for indirect fire increased (but slower than direct fire speeds)

Indirect fire trajectory altered to allow for more accurate fire over tall obstructions. The trajectory begins arcing high then flattens out and then dropping gradually over the last portion of the flight to target. This should be designed to allow for close obstructions to be cleared easily by the volley yet tall obstructions very close to the target will still provide cover for the targeted mech.

Normalization of volley spread across launcher sizes to normalize LRM performance from larger launcher (addressing the LRM5 being superior to the other launchers due to volley spread)

Artemis: When an artemis equiped launcher is targeting an enemy that is in direct line of sight the following additional effects come into play.

Projectile speed is further enhanced

Projectile spread is further reduced

Lock on time is further reduced

Enemy ECM in disrupt mode that is either within range of the artemis launcher or within range of the target of the artemis launcher counters the benifits of the artemis.


Damage values per LRM projectile may need to reexamined as well as the functionality of AMS with these new alterations in play.

[Felbombling]

I gave Bishop a like because he pretty much nailed what I would do with LRMs. I'd also lower the splash effects in the cockpit, especially for LRM 5 racks, to prevent cheese-boating. Also, I'd assign them a bone in five point clusters, much like Streak SRM missiles lock-on to target, instead of the varied spread mechanics, but I see where Steiner was going with his option.

[Trauglodyte]

Really easy:

• LRMs target bones; no more random spread with LRM5s being tigher
  
• LRM speed increased to 225
  
• Due to the speed increase, the height of the flight arc has been increased substantially
  
• When a target is acquired with LOS (uses the Artemis IV code), the trajectory is a 0 degree flat angle
  
• LRMs now only deal 0.9 damage per missile (adjusted lower to build in base "miss" code)
  
• Firing indirectly reduces the damage done to the target by -50%
  
• Firing indirectly flattens the "bone" code so that each hit box has equal % chance to be hit
  
• Each LRM rack beyond the 2nd increases the lock on time by +20%
  
• ECM no longer prevents targetting or LRM acquisition but, instead, increases the lock-on time by 2.5x
  
• Cool down on racks has been changed to the following:

• LRM5 - 4 seconds
  
• LRM10 - 4.3 seconds
  
• LRM15 - 4.6 seconds
  
• LRM20 - 5 seconds

Edited by Trauglodyte, 17 June 2016 - 09:44 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

• Increase missile speed
  
• Lower missile trajectory for direct fire
  
• Increase time needed for missile lock when firing indirectly.
  
• Change the missile lock mechanic (see below)

[Bishop Steiner]

WarHippy, on 17 June 2016 - 09:29 AM, said:

I think I agree with everything but the underlined part. Even with the increased velocity and flat line trajectory LRMs are still an inferior direct fire weapon so I see no reason to gimp them by requiring dead on aim and face time with an enemy who is probably firing vastly superior weapons at you. Unless I misunderstood what you were saying.

On a side note it looks like indirect fire is still possible with just a spotter like now and doesn't necessarily need a Tag/Narc/etc.? I hope that is the case personally because that is usually where I have a hard time finding agreement with a revised LRM system. Essentially taking away indirect fire because others didn't bring extra equipment while direct fire is still mostly inferior to other direct fire weapons makes LRMs even more useless than now.
*edit* Post below me is an example of what I am talking about.

Life I said, some stuff would need pts time. My only issue with not requiring pipper contact for the direct party is the poke who will cry no skill over the general lock on mechanic. I don't think it would be too strong, but feel having a back up plan in case might be warranted. And yes, I absolutely believe in keeping indirect with just a spotter, that's lore accurate. Just making it less effective, since simply nerfing rewards hasn't really curtailed the coward boats at 1000 meters

[Novakaine]

Flattening trajectory of lrms would reduce them to near useless.
If we were able to switch modes "direct or indirect for them that would be fine.
Otherwise you just borked them even more, of course if that's what your'e really trying to do here.

[Trauglodyte]

Novakaine, on 17 June 2016 - 10:07 AM, said:

Flattening trajectory of lrms would reduce them to near useless.
If we were able to switch modes "direct or indirect for them that would be fine.
Otherwise you just borked them even more, of course if that's what your'e really trying to do here.

If your target is in LOS, you don't need/want an arc. Faster missiles with a higher indirect arc makes them better direct fire weapons.

[xe N on]

Very well. Beside all these nice ideas for direct and indirect fire ...

In my approach LRMs would be devasting. They would deal splash damage in dimension of their number (LRM 5 = 5 splash damage to every part, LRM 10 = 10 splash damage to every part, etc.).

However. Their ammo per ton would be reduced by a huge amount. This means, they hit hard but you can't spam them like currently. They would become a "thinking men's weapon" rather than a weapon of mass spam.

Edited by xe N on, 17 June 2016 - 10:15 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Novakaine, on 17 June 2016 - 10:07 AM, said:

Flattening trajectory of lrms would reduce them to near useless.
If we were able to switch modes "direct or indirect for them that would be fine.
Otherwise you just borked them even more, of course if that's what your'e really trying to do here.

most recommendations have a very simple Direct/Indirect mechanic. When one does have LoS one does want flatter trajectory and higher speed. When firing indirect then you want rainbows.

Differentiating between the two modes is literally as simple as....do you have a LoS lock, which apparently the game can tell since Artemis does nothing (supposedly) for indirect, already.

[Trauglodyte]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 June 2016 - 10:15 AM, said:

most recommendations have a very simple Direct/Indirect mechanic. When one does have LoS one does want flatter trajectory and higher speed. When firing indirect then you want rainbows.

Differentiating between the two modes is literally as simple as....do you have a LoS lock, which apparently the game can tell since Artemis does nothing (supposedly) for indirect, already.

The code for that already exists. Or, the beginning of the code exists. Artemis IV checks for LOS. If you have it, your spread tightens. So, all PGI would need to do is build a code, assuming that they 1) want to do it and 2) know how to do it, is build upon the existing Artemis coding. You've got basic indirect arc and a 0 degree arc for LOS when checked.

[Bishop Steiner]

Trauglodyte, on 17 June 2016 - 10:17 AM, said:

The code for that already exists. Or, the beginning of the code exists. Artemis IV checks for LOS. If you have it, your spread tightens. So, all PGI would need to do is build a code, assuming that they 1) want to do it and 2) know how to do it, is build upon the existing Artemis coding. You've got basic indirect arc and a 0 degree arc for LOS when checked.

kinda the thought behind my proposal to begin with, yes.

[Trauglodyte]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 June 2016 - 10:22 AM, said:

kinda the thought behind my proposal to begin with, yes.

Been preaching it for like 3+ years, buddy, so I'm there with you.

[Novakaine]

Trauglodyte, on 17 June 2016 - 10:08 AM, said:

If your target is in LOS, you don't need/want an arc. Faster missiles with a higher indirect arc makes them better direct fire weapons.

Yes it would, but this is PGI we're talking about

[Escef]

Increase velocity, decrease maneuverability, make them fire-and-forget, require a new missile lock each time a launcher fires (if you fire 1 of your 4 launchers than that launcher will need to reacquire lock to program its missiles, but the remaining 3 are still ready to fly).