44 replies to this topic

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Wildstreak, on 10 June 2017 - 08:01 AM, said:

ACs for some reason have a Refire penalty if shot 2+ turns in a row. All but the AC10 are shown as multi-shot weapons.

Ac10s on Urbanmechs are burst fire, but the AC10 on the Orion is a single shell.

[MischiefSC]

Flat, fast trajectory with tracking, so a slower LBX but with a certainty to get a hit and some damage.

You could make it work. Would make LRMs much better.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Shifty McSwift, on 09 June 2017 - 10:57 PM, said:

Well with MRM coming it seems like that role of direct fire will be taken up by them.

But the idea of firing LRMs without a lock I wish worked in artillery style projectile paths, with the range determined by how far up or down you are aiming at the time of firing. Aiming lowest as possible would make them travel around 200m for example, looking up as far as possible making them travel around 900m.

Yeah MRM and I am betting the Clan ATMs will both be long range direct fire missiles. The big difference will be MRMs will be dumb fire and move in a straight line toward the target while ATMs will require a lock be more like LRMs that have a flat, zero arc, trajectory.

[evilauthor]

Shifty McSwift, on 09 June 2017 - 11:09 PM, said:

Yeah but they go weirdly in pretty unpredictable, or at least hard to effectively manage, paths.

Actually, no they don't. They go to EXACTLY where your crosshairs were pointed when you pulled the trigger, be it a patch of ground or the open sky. They won't follow mechs in this mode, but theoretically, if you aim at a target mech's feet, the LRMs will hit the mech if the mech doesn't move.

Unless you're aiming at a patch of ground inside the LRM's minimum range. In which case, yeah, they go off on a random trajectory.

BTW, I've used this LRM behavior in Incursion Mode to great effect. While LRMs won't lock onto Base targets, if you actually aim at them (and there's nothing obstructing your line of sight), an LRM volley will quickly and efficiently kill something like a mobile HQ in just a few volleys. Because AFAICT, ALL the LRMs are hitting them. I think a pair of LRM-15s can kill a mobile HQ in just one or two salvos.

[Wildstreak]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 10 June 2017 - 08:17 AM, said:

Ac10s on Urbanmechs are burst fire, but the AC10 on the Orion is a single shell.

I will have to check also the Centurion-A.

As for LRMs, it should also be mentioned HBS Battletech LRMs are x4 damage while SRMs are x5.

[Ted Wayz]

MischiefSC, on 10 June 2017 - 09:15 AM, said:

Flat, fast trajectory with tracking, so a slower LBX but with a certainty to get a hit and some damage.

You could make it work. Would make LRMs much better.

How? I am already imagining the team damage that results from this idea. And how are you going to improve torso yaw so missile boats can hit things on a ledge above them? How is any of this well thought out and an improvement?

Why are people trying to turn our current missiles into the equivalent of TOW missiles? Can people not tolerate indirect fire that they have to make everything direct fire? And why are you not discussing how unrealistic our current ballistic mechanic is?

LRMs are one of the few things that are different in this game. Can we stop focusing in on trying to make everything the same and ask the question why is it an issue that they are different?

Edited by Ted Wayz, 11 June 2017 - 06:01 AM.

[Ruar]

Ted Wayz, on 11 June 2017 - 05:59 AM, said:

How? I am already imagining the team damage that results from this idea. And how are you going to improve torso yaw so missile boats can hit things on a ledge above them? How is any of this well thought out and an improvement?

Why are people trying to turn our current missiles into the equivalent of TOW missiles? Can people not tolerate indirect fire that they have to make everything direct fire? And why are you not discussing how unrealistic our current ballistic mechanic is?

LRMs are one of the few things that are different in this game. Can we stop focusing in on trying to make everything the same and ask the question why is it an issue that they are different?

It's an issue that they are different because they either don't work effectively with their difference or they work too well. Different is fine if it's working, but LRMs have significant issues. Which is why there are so many making suggestions on how to make some changes to get rid of those issues.

[Willard Phule]

Gee....maybe LRMs should have two "modes" that you have to actually select with a hot key. Direct and indirect. Means you can't lock and lob without being in the proper setting. If you're on direct fire, it goes fast and straight.

That'd actually be cool, but the potato factor would kill it.

[Ruar]

Willard Phule, on 11 June 2017 - 10:38 AM, said:

Gee....maybe LRMs should have two "modes" that you have to actually select with a hot key. Direct and indirect. Means you can't lock and lob without being in the proper setting. If you're on direct fire, it goes fast and straight.

That'd actually be cool, but the potato factor would kill it.

You mean something like this?
https://mwomercs.com...33#entry5765833

[Willard Phule]

Ruar, on 11 June 2017 - 12:30 PM, said:

You mean something like this?
https://mwomercs.com...33#entry5765833

Absolutely, except....and you have to really keep this in mind....new players rely on LRMs to even function. A lot of these guys can't even unzoom to prevent themselves from tearing up their own teammates. Having to toggle a function with LRMs is going to be far too dificult for them.

That is the potato factor.

[Ruar]

Willard Phule, on 11 June 2017 - 01:13 PM, said:

Absolutely, except....and you have to really keep this in mind....new players rely on LRMs to even function. A lot of these guys can't even unzoom to prevent themselves from tearing up their own teammates. Having to toggle a function with LRMs is going to be far too dificult for them.

That is the potato factor.

ECM has two modes, yet there doesn't seem to be any issues with it and new people.

Honestly, is the problem having a secondary mode, or the fact the tutorial is woefully inadequate for new people to understand the basics of the game?

[Relishcakes]

RestosIII, on 10 June 2017 - 12:50 AM, said:

I'm tired and can't really debate LRM mechanics right now, but is it just me, or is the top illustration there incorrect? The Arc it shows is wrong for where the end of the barrel is. AFAIK grenades don't change their direction to be a higher arc than the barrel when launched, correct?

From what experience I have in my 8 years in the army. The reason for such a drawing is because when you fire the recoil(no matter how well controlled) will always have at least a little arc because you're holding a very tiny explosion in your hands. Up until a certain point(the optimal range) where the fired object will end up landing lower than where you were initially aiming. The illustration does look a little weird though.

[Brain Cancer]

Honestly, aside from the velocity increase they need, it'd be three modes:

1) Direct fire with lock: LRMs fire in a lower arc but with higher velocity. (240)
2) Indirect fire with lock: LRMs fire in a higher arc with lower velocity. (200)
3) No lock: LRMs fire in a flat line with higher velocity. This allows you to fire them in otherwise impossible areas like most tunnels or into things like the roof area of HPG. (240)

[Willard Phule]

Ruar, on 11 June 2017 - 02:29 PM, said:

ECM has two modes, yet there doesn't seem to be any issues with it and new people.

Honestly, is the problem having a secondary mode, or the fact the tutorial is woefully inadequate for new people to understand the basics of the game?

Seriously? When was the last time you saw a trial mech with ECM set to counter? Most of the ECM mechs I've seen countering are obviously owned and modified.

[Shifty McSwift]

evilauthor, on 10 June 2017 - 01:08 PM, said:

Actually, no they don't.

I meant compared to having them function like I mentioned, as stock ranges based on aim height, compared to that functionality the way they travel to where you are pointing, but never behind without a lock seems to me at least, to be far more hard to manage effectively, you can only really fire at a target you can see and you can't arc shots etc etc.

Unpredictable was the wrong word, again I meant it in the sense that they don't follow a normal weapons logic, the distance they travel etc is only determined by exactly what your crosshair is pointing at.

[Barantor]

Been asking for this since Beta, it hasn't happened yet even though it gets brought up again every 6 months or so, or any time there is a lot of LRMs on the field.

MRMs will seal the fate of this never happening.

[evilauthor]

Shifty McSwift, on 11 June 2017 - 06:52 PM, said:

I meant compared to having them function like I mentioned, as stock ranges based on aim height, compared to that functionality the way they travel to where you are pointing, but never behind without a lock seems to me at least, to be far more hard to manage effectively, you can only really fire at a target you can see and you can't arc shots etc etc.

Unpredictable was the wrong word, again I meant it in the sense that they don't follow a normal weapons logic, the distance they travel etc is only determined by exactly what your crosshair is pointing at.

Unless you turn LRMs into area effect splash damage, you are NEVER going to hit anything with this method except for once in a blue moon. Certainly no newbie new to the game is going to be able to hit anything. It's like trying to use a Covenant Tank in Halo; you can't hit **** unless it's right on your front bumper.

For a weapon with arcing fire whose arc is manually determined by how high you raise your cross hairs, there's no way to determine beforehand where the shot is going to land, unless you go one of two routes:

1) Your UI highlights the patch of ground where our shots will land. If you do this, you might as well stick with the current system of unlocked LRMs flying to the spot where your crosshairs are pointed. It's simpler.

or

2) Your UI draws a line showing where your missiles will fly. At which point people will start whining why their line of sight weapons don't have the same feature so that they don't waste shots on intervening terrain.

But you know the biggest reason why using "aim for arc" is a bad idea? Because mechs inherently carry more than just LRMs. They can also carry lasers, autocannons, SRMs even for those mechs with only missile hard points. And you know what all those other weapons have in common? They all shoot at where the crosshairs are pointed.

If LRMs don't shoot where the crosshairs are pointed at but move in a ballistic trajectory whose starting angle depends on the elevation of aim, then you can't use LRMs with direct fire weapons in an alpha strike... or even just a standard weapon group rotation. You'd literally have to pull your crosshairs OFF your target to aim up in order to send LRMs at it. I'm aware that's standard practice when direct fire weapons are on cool down, but the idea is to torso twist to protect the CT, which you're not doing if you're aiming up instead of to the side.

So I don't see this system working for LRMs, simply because the current system is more intuitive: aka, you shoot what you aim at, and your mech's computing systems take care of the hard part of calculating what ballistic trajectory the launcher needs to launch at to send the missile where it needs to go.

[Shifty McSwift]

evilauthor, on 11 June 2017 - 08:15 PM, said:

Unless you turn LRMs into area effect splash damage, you are NEVER going to hit anything with this method except for once in a blue moon. Certainly no newbie new to the game is going to be able to hit anything. It's like trying to use a Covenant Tank in Halo; you can't hit **** unless it's right on your front bumper.

For a weapon with arcing fire whose arc is manually determined by how high you raise your cross hairs, there's no way to determine beforehand where the shot is going to land, unless you go one of two routes:

1) Your UI highlights the patch of ground where our shots will land. If you do this, you might as well stick with the current system of unlocked LRMs flying to the spot where your crosshairs are pointed. It's simpler.

or

2) Your UI draws a line showing where your missiles will fly. At which point people will start whining why their line of sight weapons don't have the same feature so that they don't waste shots on intervening terrain.

But you know the biggest reason why using "aim for arc" is a bad idea? Because mechs inherently carry more than just LRMs. They can also carry lasers, autocannons, SRMs even for those mechs with only missile hard points. And you know what all those other weapons have in common? They all shoot at where the crosshairs are pointed.

If LRMs don't shoot where the crosshairs are pointed at but move in a ballistic trajectory whose starting angle depends on the elevation of aim, then you can't use LRMs with direct fire weapons in an alpha strike... or even just a standard weapon group rotation. You'd literally have to pull your crosshairs OFF your target to aim up in order to send LRMs at it. I'm aware that's standard practice when direct fire weapons are on cool down, but the idea is to torso twist to protect the CT, which you're not doing if you're aiming up instead of to the side.

So I don't see this system working for LRMs, simply because the current system is more intuitive: aka, you shoot what you aim at, and your mech's computing systems take care of the hard part of calculating what ballistic trajectory the launcher needs to launch at to send the missile where it needs to go.

Fair enough, I would suggest something as simple as making the spread on arc firing them like that to be larger on the impact zone, it is not perfect, but at the same time the idea would give LRMs only more tactical viability and you have to consider the potential of 12 people doing it at once.

And the idea the LRM system shoots to where the cursor is fired, again, fair enough to want it to function like that, but why do only LRMs get this benefit, having the ACs function in the same way based on bullet drop and target ranges would make just as much if not more sense. I know you can't answer that, it's rhetorical lol, just babbling over here.

The other thing is, it would be really nice to have a weapon that can fire in an arc trajectory like that, LRMs just seem a perfect fit for it. A man can dream and stuff.

[Vellron2005]

The6thMessenger, on 09 June 2017 - 10:44 PM, said:

So I was looking at the kickass Battletech beta gameplays. Their ACs suck though, like the AC20 of the hunchback doing burst fire, and that long too, seriously it looks all wrong.

However their LRMs look a lot better in MWO, functions pretty well too. Of course it spreads damage as expected, but still looks a lot more kickass.



Something I noticed is that, there are two modes of fire -- Direct and Indirect. The Indirect fire of the LRM follows a ballistic trajectory that circumvents most covers, and i haven't really seen it done in Beta but LRMs cannot be blocked by cover AFAIK.

And then there is the Direct fire, LRMs going in straight lines. It's shown at the MW3 too:



The thing is that, assuming that the Velocity of 140m/s as dictated of the game does not account of the ballistic trajectory, this means that the curving pathway of the LRMs trying to circumvent cover would have taken longer to hit because of the longer path.

What if LRMs would go on a straight line when you have LOS? Of course when the individual launcher is blocked then it would go ballistic instead. Because the LRMs take the straight path which is the shorter path, instead of the longer ballistic path, it should encourage people to get their own locks too because it increases the likelyhood that they would land a hit with the LRMs due to less time to hit.

What do you think? Personally i would prefer if LRMs that are not artemised would remain ballistic, but only Artemised launchers could fire in straight lines. So that the Artemis bonus would "manifest" in one other way.

Poll: https://mwomercs.com...fire-lrms-poll/

Basically that's what I'm hoping ATMs will be.. Indirect when no LOS and Lock on, direct fire when LOS and no lock..

[Ruar]

Shifty McSwift, on 11 June 2017 - 08:26 PM, said:

Fair enough, I would suggest something as simple as making the spread on arc firing them like that to be larger on the impact zone, it is not perfect, but at the same time the idea would give LRMs only more tactical viability and you have to consider the potential of 12 people doing it at once.

And the idea the LRM system shoots to where the cursor is fired, again, fair enough to want it to function like that, but why do only LRMs get this benefit, having the ACs function in the same way based on bullet drop and target ranges would make just as much if not more sense. I know you can't answer that, it's rhetorical lol, just babbling over here.

The other thing is, it would be really nice to have a weapon that can fire in an arc trajectory like that, LRMs just seem a perfect fit for it. A man can dream and stuff.

Having an arc with a line/marker to determine shot fall is counter intuitive to the pace and fluidity in MWO. There is no real tactical reason to need indirect fire and the only real reason to include it in the game is because it is in BT. Every mech in MWO has to expose itself in order to hit targets, or have someone else be exposed to hit targets. Which means there is no need for indirect fire because people can't just sit out of sight shooting. Even poptarts have to expose themselves in order to shoot meaning people can shoot back at the same time.

Now, that doesn't mean we should get rid of LRMs, but hopefully it provides some context as to why I suggest indirect fire be a fairly weak mechanic. It should be flavor and not something so strong people feel it has to be included the majority of the time.


Based on this assessment then we take a look at how indirect fire can be implemented. You can do arc and marker but that's difficult because you can't see where your marker is on terrain that is out of LOS. It's just a guess, and while people can get good at guessing, in general it will be frustrating. There can be a marker on a map but that is even more stagnant than what we currently have and would pretty much kill any chance of people using mixed weaponry.

That moves us towards homing as a mechanic. The problem with having a homing weapon is there is pretty much no middle ground when it comes to effectiveness. Either the homing weapon hits frequently and so has to have it's damage potential regulated, or it misses often requiring a high amount of damage for the times when it does hit. MWO does an ok job at regulating the damage but the problem is when you have multiple mechs focused on shooting LRMs. When you have massed homing fires then any targets exposed for a short period of time will take a lot of damage. At the same time, if there is no exposed target then a large portion of your team is not really doing anything.

The are several problems with the homing and LRM mechanics as they stand in MWO. One issue is LRMs don't really reward a skilled player. There is only so much skill can do and the rest is dependent on your opponents playing in such a way to be vulnerable to LRMs. If your opponent plays LRM smart then the LRM pilot will do very little damage.

Another issue is LRMs seem like a great entry weapon for new people but there is enough nuance that it does take some skill to use effectively. Lasers and ACs are just point/click while LRMs have minimum distance, arc adjustments to avoid terrain/friendlies, counter measures to worry about, and terrain at target area. So while the lock and shoot mechanic is easy, the rest of LRMs require some knowledge of the game.

The biggest problem with LRMs in their current state is they actively discourage mixed weaponry builds. Having LRMs alongside MPL and SRMs is frustrating. The LRMs need to be locked and the crosshairs held on target which distract from positioning, firing other weapons, and prevents rolling damage across armor. Firing LRMs without a lock is an option but the slow speed and high arc limit the effectiveness.

All in all we end up with a weapon that is pretty bad at doing the job it should be doing (long range direct fire), can be so OP at it's secondary role that it becomes the only fire mode in the game with multiple counter measures besides terrain, and relies more on your opponent playing poorly than your own skill.

So, how can it be fixed?

First, get rid of homing to a mech. Not needed, too hard to balance. Second, make direct fire the primary reason for using LRMs. This will encourage mixed builds and make LRMs easier to balance. Speed up direct fire, make sure the spread isn't too big, and make the arc shallow and predictable. More tweaking can be done if needed, but the intent should be a long range direct fire missile system that can be used without having to worry about a lock.

Then have a toggle for indirect fire mode which brings up the lock system but instead of firing at the mech it locks to the piece of terrain where the target is standing. Keep the higher velocity, have a high arc, open up the spread so it's more of an area weapon than point target. Boating LRMs will let you saturate an area in a support role but it won't have the same lethality against an individual mech.

LRM boats can have some quirks like RoF, heat, etc to compensate for their general lack of mixed hardpoints while most mechs will just use LRMs to fill in a leftover missile slot to give them some long range fire.