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ATM 3 / 6 / 9 / 12
Advanced Tactical Missile. A missile whose damage will vary based on the distance it travelled. Higher damage up close, lower damage at long range.
Advanced Tactical Missile, in it's iteration with the original BT, is that it's a weapon able to make use of 3 different ammunition; Extended Range [ER], Standard, and High Explosive [HE].
As per the name suggests, ER has the farthest range of the ammnunition but it deals less damage. HE deals the most damage, but it's the shortest of range. And then Standard is basically the middle ground.
Each HE missile deals 3 damage over 3/6/9 range without minimum range ER deals 1 over 9/18/27, while Standard deals 2 over 5/10/15, both at a minimum range of 4. The ER and Standard ammunition is defined as multi-staged.
As with PGI's planned feature, all three function is instead combined into a single ammunition type, that deals damage based on the travelled distance. It's practically like PPCs and AC shots as it seems, as their damage is weakened over range above their effective range. I'm actually rather okay with that simplification.
How i envisioned it, based on the info PGI has said, is that it's like a burst-fire weapon, like that of the LRM and Clan ACs -- basically burst-fire autocannons but shoots missiles instead of shells. And being multi-staged, I presume that it might have a dynamically changing projectile speed. There is no indication that they are homing, so i assume that they are dumbfired.
SRMs are easy to land a hit despite of it's 400 projectile speed, because it's range is at 270 meters, and is usually even used closer. LRMs are hard to land, because their speed is only 160, and is used over greater distances and requires maintained lock that can be easily broken. SSRM works because it's fire-and-forget, no retained lock needed. Even at 360m it works.
But where does ATM fall here? Would they function as an even more hard-hitting AC? Would the missiles be even slower than AC shells? if that's the case then it's even harder to land over great distances, that i fail to see why would people even bother using it long range. What range would it be? Maybe 200m for 3 high damage? 450m for 2 damage, and then 1 damage beyond?
It's saving grace is that burst-fire maybe, but considering the meta, why would anyone use it for brawling range than SRMs that you can shoot once and done, than a longer face time due to the burst fire?
With it's "multi-staged missiles", how would it work? Would it start slow and pick up speed? or would it start fast, and loose speed? Would it fire at a shotgun-all-at-once missiles and then each missiles then sequentially?
I searched for ATMs in previous MW iteration, and i found this in MW LL which is actually pretty awesome BTW:
Maybe ATMs would be glorified Streak SRMs? But would burst-fire instead? But honestly, wouldn't it be game-breaking that it's basically an LRM that doesn't need retained lock? -- although it doesn't go over obstacles.
Right now, I don't see how ATM could fit within the game. Any thoughts?
Edited by The6thMessenger, 12 April 2017 - 02:38 AM.
