Bishop Steiner, on 28 April 2017 - 03:59 PM, said:
but there has to be a balancer to avoid replacing SRMs.
Sadly there is no real way to avoid that, ATM3 is 1.5 tons, and is meant to have Artemis baked into the launcher. At 2 slots for an ATM3 for 1.5 tons, it is more flexible than a cSRM6 and should have a tighter cluster, plus tighter damage from half the missiles at 3 vs 6 thanks to, again, baked in Artemis. That is the smallest launcher, now of course the main draw back would be likely be same cooldown to a cSRM6 as an ATM3 puts out 9 damage per shot vs an SRM6 doing 12 so DPS SRM6 would be better, though lacking tracking.
Stepping up from that to the ATM6 it shares size of a cLRM15+A with the weight of an cLRM15-A, ATM9 shares Slots and Weight of a cLRM20, and ATM12 is 7 tons and 5 crits which is beyond any missile weapon the clans have now so it couldn't just copy the cooldown timer of an existing clan weapon instead. The idea being making ATM's do more damage up close so you don't want to get close to them as they will smack you hard and rock your day unlike a LRMboat would, but, wouldn't have the DPS like a SRMboat thus leaving SRM brawlers having a place in MWO. Likely ATM6 have cooldown of cLRM10, so on and so forth as they do have lower damage potential at longer range, and 4 seconds for 18 damage is getting to AC20/LB20X cooldown time for the ATM6 doing effectively "Missileboat shotgun" with it's payload at the "3 damage per missile" range. That of course also doesn't get into the issue of SRM's are also going to remain far more damage per ton of ammo efficient than ATM's as ATM's are 60 missiles per ton, likely going up to 100 under PGI's rules which is still lower than SRM's ratio.
But, yes, I can see how ATM's would look a lot more attractive than SRM's until you start realizing an ATM3 is the same as a SRM6 in terms of tonnage, you get 20 shots per ton of ammo with an ATM3 which is up from an SRM6 with 16.7, but 9 damage vs 12 damage, same cycle time, tighter cluster but less missiles (so if you partially miss with an SRM6 you are likely to fully miss with an ATM3 due to tighter spread due to baked in Artemis and only 3 projectiles). Throw in the flexibility and people will likely throw out missiles at mid and long range running their ammo dry sooner and lose out on damage as it does reduced damage at longer range. SRM's still will be king of brawling over ATM's, but, ATM's will be great for mid range combat and closing imo.
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