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[Cassa Nova]

http://www.sarna.net...Rocket_Launcher

Introduced in 3050 the rocket launcher is a primitive dumb munition launcher. Containing no automatic reload system the rockets are cheap, easy to produce and are very light to mount only ever reaching 1.5 Tonnes at its largest launcher size.

The question is why would we ever need Rockets in MWO we already have LRMs and SRMs. Well for one it would be a relatively trivial task of reworking a weapon already in MWO, two it would allow mechs that normally would ignore missile slots an option to utilize them, third it opens up the mid range to direct fire missiles, Lastly it provides viarity and spices up a rather stagnate Meta. Oh and it can justify it's development time with a mech pack, more on that later though.

How I see this being implemented is to take an LRM, flatten it's trajectory completely, increase the speed to match the SRM and then increase the spread by 20-40%. When you load multiple RLs of the same class instead of becoming a new slot for the purpose of weapon grouping they would stack like AMS' currently do, the multiples acting like an ammo pool. At this point you must be wondering why would you every chose RLs over SRMs? Sure they have 600ish meter range but they still only do 1 point of DMG per missile with no reloads in exchange. Well since each RL is a separate weapon system there would be no cool down. You can fire them off as fast as you can click the mouse. With no ammo there's no risk of ammo explosions. They would allow flanking lights to be a proper threat eating through rear armour in seconds.

The pros and Cons of the weapon when compared to the other missile weapons at our disposal are fairly self evident but ill list them here.

PRO
Light weight - A RL10 is half a ton while a RL20 is 1.5
Rapid Fire - Fire as fast as you can click
Medium range - Just shy of matching the AC10
Low heat - At the 20 DMG point RL=5 LRM=6 SRM=7

Cons
No reloads - Blow your load to early and everyone leaves disappointed
Inaccurate - Suffers from a +1 to hit on TT so should have increased spread in MWO
Alpha limited by player - You're only limited by how fast you can click or if you macro.
Potential troll builds - Ala Direstar, will die off after implementation as people figure how inefficient it is.

As for justifying the dev time an opportunity arises. Various factions of the periphery took to refitting current mechs we have in game now with rocket launchers, mechs like the Locust-1V2, Commando-H, Centurion-H and several others. Create a mech pack for 15-20 dollars of these new variants and I'm sure you'll make your Dev time back.

[Spleenslitta]

I was sceptical at first because of the nonreloadable bit. So i took a reaaallly long look at your plan.

I think it could work but i want you to have more options on how to balance the Rocket Launchers.
I'm worried RL's suffer so much from the nonreloadable feature that they cannot overcome it through the Pro's you listed.
I'll try to come up with ideas to further strenghten the RL's. I won't touch the TT stats like damage, heat, range, spread, weight and crit slots.

Please pick the ideas you like or none if you don't think they are necessary.

1) Maybe increase the velocity of the rockets to 600 since they have longer range than SRM's.
Yes i know they have a large spread at their range of 540meters but it should still have a velocity proportional to it's range.

2) Let's say RL's only take up half a missile slot. You could equip 2 RL's inside a single missile hardpoint but they still weight the same and take up crit slots.
2x RL10 would still weigh 0.5 tons each and take up 1 crit slot each.

3 ) I have some ideas from my Rifle idea that could be applied here.
First one is higher structural damage whenever a rocket hits unarmored internals. Maybe 2 or 3 times more structural damage?
Would make it worth it to save the RL's for the middle and final parts of the match when there are heavily wounded mechs all over the place.

4) Second idea from my Rifles is higher critical hit chances when armor has been stripped from the target.
How much higher critical chance and how much better critical damage multiplier? I'm stumped at this point....


5) The numbers i'm about to drop are just examples that can be changed.
Each rocket has limited ability to get critical hits on internal components when armor is below 15 for example.
With each armor point below 15% in a body section each rocket has +1% better chances to criticaly hit something through the armor.

How big a chance to crit and how much damage to component on critical hit?
Base chance of 15% to critically hit a component protected by 15 points of armor for 300% damage for example.
When armor is completly gone from a section of a mech the rocket has 30% chance to critically hit something.

Another example. Rocket hits a bodysection with 5 points of armor left. 15% + 10% =25% chance to critically hit something through those 5 points of armor.

That means a rocket that critically hits a component such as an ML does 3 damage to it. But the other rockets in the salvo might not hit that same component or bodysection.
This makes RL's really fearsome when shooting an enemy in the rear where the armor is weakest.
Should the critical damage multiplier, armor penetration limit and base critical hit chance be changed?
Probably but it's decent as far as explanations go.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 03 September 2016 - 01:27 PM.