271 replies to this topic

[Roughneck45]

Four easy steps to not have people ***** at you for bringing LRMs.

Be a medium or heavy, share your armor, target big mechs, and make sure your missiles are connecting.

And vote polar highlands every time.

[ScrapIron Prime]

The smart Lurmer (if that's a word) fights just behind the brawler line so his/her missles have short flight times, so they can share in the damage soaking , and so they can force mechs back into cover, thus hindering the enemy's ability to concentrate fire and helping your brawlers concentrate theirs. You also need to have enough secondary weapons as to not be helpless.

My favorite LRM boat is in fact an assault mech. Highlander 733P with 2 Artemis 15's, 2 LL, 2 ML. Working at a 400-500 meter range right behind the brawlers, it always has something to fire.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

El Bandito, on 24 March 2017 - 01:37 AM, said:

Best Inner Sphere mercenary commanders such as Jaime Wolf and Morgan Kell had piloted LRM boating Archers in lore. You don't see people laughing at them for using no-skilled noob tubes agaisnt Clans. Players in MWO are just narrow minded.

And they had plenty of plot armor...

[Coolant]

LRM's don't annoy me in themselves as weapons, nor do they annoy me because they are unstoppable. There is usually cover to hide behind. The reason they annoy me is because the enemy can do damage to you without ever needing to see you. I prefer facing my enemy face to face, honorable that way.

[GabrielSun]

ScrapIron Prime, on 24 March 2017 - 07:07 AM, said:

The smart Lurmer (if that's a word) fights just behind the brawler line so his/her missles have short flight times, so they can share in the damage soaking , and so they can force mechs back into cover, thus hindering the enemy's ability to concentrate fire and helping your brawlers concentrate theirs. You also need to have enough secondary weapons as to not be helpless.

Pretty much. Tag them yourself even.

[Lyoto Machida]

ZippySpeedMonkey, on 24 March 2017 - 06:04 AM, said:

Well there are 2 answers to this....

1) People using LRM's are stacking them ( LRM 20 x 4 ) and there is no real penalty to the user for doing so...

2) People are building high Alpha mechs at the cost of engine size ( thus speed ). When they get caught out in the open it sucks for them.

Again, as I've said repeatedly a simple solution would be for any ammo based weapon that is stacked past 2 start to jam, and we would see a decline in the stacking phenomena..

They took out LRM ghost heat? When did this happen?

[oldradagast]

The only valid "hate" I've seen against LRM's is when a huge assault mech brings a pile of them and forgets to bring any weapons that are useful under LRM range... or, maybe they bring 1 small laser, but you get the idea. Then, they stand at 800 meters like a post, firing at everything without good locks, missing most shots, contributing very little to the game.

As others have said, LRM's are not effective "noob weapons" - it's easy to get some damage with them, but it takes skill to use them well. Certainly more skill than "point and click" Gauss + PPC that dominates the game currently. They are also best used from medium range and from a reasonably mobile platform that can move about to not waste shots on cover while keeping the rain going. They do have a lot of hard counters, which is a pain, but they are hardly "overpowered" or "useless" as the two factions like to complain.

Edited by oldradagast, 24 March 2017 - 08:35 AM.

[Tatula]

There seems to be an increase in LRMs whenever there is an event that requires a certain ,match score to qualify, such as the current Lucky Charm event. LRM boats tends to get decent damage numbers, even if they don't get many kills.

[MacClearly]

Escef, on 24 March 2017 - 01:19 AM, said:

To be fair, there are plenty of experienced players that get killed by LRMs because they get sloppy and don't take proper defensive precautions. And that happens because they've convinced themselves of how bad LRMs are and that no one should use them. And while LRMs are sub-par, they can still wreck you if you get sloppy like that.

I think it says something that if I happen to get killed by lrms I have done something stupid, yet if I am gunned down by most other means, it can generally be credited to the player shooting me....

[InspectorG]

El Bandito, on 24 March 2017 - 01:37 AM, said:

Best Inner Sphere mercenary commanders such as Jaime Wolf and Morgan Kell had piloted LRM boating Archers in lore. You don't see people laughing at them for using no-skilled noob tubes agaisnt Clans. Players in MWO are just narrow minded.

LRMs work helluva a lot better with 2d6 than MWO.

[InspectorG]

BabyCakes666, on 24 March 2017 - 01:04 AM, said:

so do LRMs attract bad players or do LRMs make you a bad player?

LRM usage by new players/bads give the illusion of skill by inflated damage numbers and by suppressing enemy bads.

And when they level up enough to face decent players, they dont understand the(LRM) inefficiencies and conflate teammates not holding locks as bad teamwork.

[oldradagast]

I'll give a prime example out of a game that my team just lost.

The Cyclops Q variant on our team - the one with a billion missile hardpoints. What does he run? 4 LRM15's and 1 LRM 10. And a TAG. Naturally, he gets torn apart when the enemy team pushes hard. Why would one run a build like that? Ok, I can see not liking the meta build with nothing but SRM's, so maybe you toss an LRM 10 or 2 on there to do something at a range... but why build a 90 ton mech overloaded on weapons and yet lacking any ability to do anything at under 180 meters? That mech, right there, is a good example of why people hate LRM's.

Edited by oldradagast, 24 March 2017 - 08:50 AM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

GabrielSun, on 24 March 2017 - 07:56 AM, said:

Pretty much. Tag them yourself even.

Yes indeed. If you're solo dropping, plan A should always be to acquire your own locks.

[Ori Disciple]

The only issue I have with LRMs is people firing them outside the max range. I literally saw that last night. Guy was firing them at 1500 meters. I've always personally felt that unless you KNOW that you will have a solid firing solution, you should only really use LRMs from 450-600 meters, with line of sight when needed (like if you use LRM+As).

I also always have back-up weapons on my LRM mechs, because only having LRMs is a bad thing to do, since there can be situations where you won't be able to use them.

[Abisha]

using LRM right is hard. only newbies think it's a easy weapon

[FireStoat]

Abisha, on 24 March 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

using LRM right is hard. only newbies think it's a easy weapon

There are some people that use this weapon pretty well. But in random groups, for every one player that is good with them there are MANY more that are completely hopeless potatoes. Want to know the way how to spot them?

Watch a player using LRM's that lines up a shot and will bring their mech to a COMPLETE HALT every time as they pull the trigger. It's like, in their mind they are thinking "If I keep moving I'll lose this lock"... that they never had in the first place, and are currently borrowing the lock from a player closer to the target.

Edit - If you think I'm kidding, just watch for it in game yourself. And then check out how far back from the group they constantly end up being.

Edited by FireStoat, 24 March 2017 - 10:24 AM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

The most fun use of LRMs as a team tactc I've participated in was right when the Thunderbolt was first released. My unit dropped as a group with 4-6 thunderbolts kitted out with LL, ML, and one LRM 10 or 15 each. Combined fire put out a credible blanket of lurms while marching in to laser range, and more than once we got jumped by a light or two trying to "get the lurm boats", only finding a face full of lazors instead. =)

The key to this kind of teamwork is to remember that your mech is a close range fighter and that the LRM launcher is meant to support your team when you have no direct fire targets. A mech with a single LRM like this should NOT loiter in the backfield like its some kind of indirect fire platform.

[chucklesMuch]

oldradagast, on 24 March 2017 - 08:50 AM, said:

I'll give a prime example out of a game that my team just lost.

The Cyclops Q variant on our team - the one with a billion missile hardpoints. What does he run? 4 LRM15's and 1 LRM 10. And a TAG. Naturally, he gets torn apart when the enemy team pushes hard. Why would one run a build like that? Ok, I can see not liking the meta build with nothing but SRM's, so maybe you toss an LRM 10 or 2 on there to do something at a range... but why build a 90 ton mech overloaded on weapons and yet lacking any ability to do anything at under 180 meters? That mech, right there, is a good example of why people hate LRM's.

Aw but that mech is so much fun boating SRMS!

[Bishop Steiner]

PhoenixFire55, on 24 March 2017 - 01:43 AM, said:

Since their mechs weren't sporting C3 networks their LRMs were direct fire only. So, whats your point? ...

Actually... LRMs are capable of indirect fire, without a c3. They are less effective and efficent as such, but as long as one has a spotter of any sort, LRMs can be fired indirectly, in TT rules.

Which is why indirect/non NARC'D/TAG'd LRMs should have approximately twice the spread as direct LoS LRMs.

Between that, the advantages of TAG, Artemis, and the Skill tree nodes like "Missile Spread" it would greatly encourage people to get their own locks, and such, without completely removing them from the current indirect usage.. but simply making them vastly less efficient at it.

Things like base spread and velocity would still need addressing, and of course, direct LoS LRMs would have much faster time on target, since they should fire at a flat arc vs the ballistic one of indirect, but pretty sure it would be highly doable.

[Khobai]

the biggest problem with LRMs is that theyre supposed to be long range missiles yet they cant hit anything reliably at long range.

its caused by both a combination of LRMs being way too slow and ECM doing things its not supposed to like giving complete stealth.


1) LRMs need to gradually accelerate upto a much higher top speed. Which would make them better at long range without making them significantly better at short or medium range.

2) Artemis should give direct-fired missiles a bigger buff because Artemis needs to do more to justify its tonnage/crit usage. Maybe artemis could give a crit chance bonus to direct fired LRMs like the targeting computer does for energy/ballistic weapons.

3) ECM should not grant stealth. The only effect it should have on missiles is doubling lock-on time. Only stealth armor should grant stealth (which is being added this summer).

4) There should be no missile warnings. No other weapon warns you when its about to hit you. The exception is if you have AMS, then you should still get missile warnings, because AMS adds a missile radar to your mech. AMS would also probably need a range buff to deal with the faster LRMs better. People might actually use AMS then in order to get the missile warning.

5) to balance the above buffs, LRM indirect fire should be considerably less effective or maybe even impossible unless the target is tagged or narced. Because indirect fire would probably be too strong with the above buffs otherwise. But also firing indirectly shouldnt be easy mode anyway, it should require the effort of a spotter setting up a TAG or NARC for you.

Edited by Khobai, 24 March 2017 - 11:42 AM.