18 replies to this topic

[l33tworks]

If I start to chian fire a bunch of missiles, and I click to fire the first volley JUST before I get a lock, my entire volley of missiles wont track even though a I have a lock.

However if you get a lock, fire the missiles, loose lock, the missiles go to the last known position which is great, and if you then reacquire lock, the missiles will begin to track again.

So my question is

WHY DONT THEY BEGIN TO TRACK IF THEY HAVE BEEN FIRE EVEN 1MS BEFORE YOU GET LOCK?

Its very frustrating and makes no sense.

[Mcgral18]

It was abused


They used to fire, let them pass the target, then relock for a 180 degree missile direction change (into a target no longer in cover)
Albeit, there was only Forest and Frozen back then, not as many buildings.


They were also considerably more powerful. Maybe their 1.7 damage era? Maybe not.

Edited by Mcgral18, 11 June 2017 - 06:43 PM.

[JediPanther]

I think they use to in closed beta. If you fired just as you got a lock they would alter their flight patch and home in. They also had a neat spiral and high arc to them too. You could always experiment with artimis/bap/tag/narc and skill tree nodes to see if they help any. If you do a lrm heavy tree with max firepower and sensor trees you'll get a lot faster lock on,longer lock time and longer range. The lrm will also get a velocity buff which helps travel time to target so the closer you are before firing the higher chance of more lrm hitting target.

[Leone]

Because you told the missiles to dumb fire at a location. They're only doing what you tell them to, no worries mate.

~Leone.

[Willard Phule]

I guess my question is...."how did you lose the lock?"

I mean, did you have line of sight to the target before firing....or were you relying on someone else to take damage so you'd have something to shoot at? Because, let's face it, if it's the latter...that's just how things work.

[El Bandito]

Willard Phule, on 11 June 2017 - 06:31 PM, said:

I guess my question is...."how did you lose the lock?"

I mean, did you have line of sight to the target before firing....or were you relying on someone else to take damage so you'd have something to shoot at? Because, let's face it, if it's the latter...that's just how things work.

You completely misread the OP. His first missiles were dumbfired just before lock, and it did not home in, even though the lock was achieved shortly after. He didn't lose the lock--on the contrary, he acquired it.

[Barantor]

Mcgral18, on 11 June 2017 - 06:17 PM, said:

It was abused


They used to fire, let them pass the target, then relock for a 180 degree missile direction change (into a target no longer in cover)
Albeit, there was only Forest and Frozen back then, not as many buildings.


They were also considerably more powerful. Maybe their 1.7 damage era? Maybe not.

I did it, I would fire at a very distant piece of terrain, then break cover and get a lock on an atlas and watch as they pummeled his rear armor. It was way to easy to abuse and if you think LRMs are whined about now...

[Shifty McSwift]

[Deathlike]

Honestly, if you were more patient in getting the lock... you would be more effective in general.

Besides LRM mechanics that were abused back in open beta, exactly what situation would justify changing LRM behavior here?

Not wanting LRM locking means dumbfire anyways.

[l33tworks]

Willard Phule, on 11 June 2017 - 06:31 PM, said:

I guess my question is...."how did you lose the lock?"

I mean, did you have line of sight to the target before firing....or were you relying on someone else to take damage so you'd have something to shoot at? Because, let's face it, if it's the latter...that's just how things work.

Never had the lock to begin with. I am talking firing right before you get a lock. Then you get the lock right after but its too late the fired missiles will not ever track, even if they are in chain, even if they a clan lrm and are still launching out of the mech.

Sometimes you do it by accident because you're expecting a lock any millisecond, but you dont get it due to a lock delay, lag, ecm etc. And Sometimes you do it on purpose, You dumb fire them at a mech on purpose, but then the mech moves an you have a lock so you expect your missles to start following, but they dont.

Leone, on 11 June 2017 - 06:19 PM, said:

Because you told the missiles to dumb fire at a location. They're only doing what you tell them to, no worries mate.

~Leone.

Then theres the case when you loose lock. They should still fire at the targets last known location for at least a few seconds after loosing lock. Them IMMEDIATELY loosing lock and dumb firing into the ground in front of you where you "told them to" is NEVER intended. Its just sloppy coding which can be improved. Its even worse if you have high ping. Constantly battling bad game mechanics instead of the enemy team.

Edited by l33tworks, 11 June 2017 - 07:17 PM.

[l33tworks]

Barantor, on 11 June 2017 - 06:52 PM, said:

I did it, I would fire at a very distant piece of terrain, then break cover and get a lock on an atlas and watch as they pummeled his rear armor. It was way to easy to abuse and if you think LRMs are whined about now...

Yea I think I remember. However easy way to solve that is to only make them track if a lock is aquired 1 second after firing, and no more. Same with loosing lock. They should fire at the last known location for 1 second after loosing lock so you have time to stop firing, instead of almost always loosing a volley into the ground.

Its just a quality of life improvement.

Edited by l33tworks, 11 June 2017 - 07:18 PM.

[Willard Phule]

El Bandito, on 11 June 2017 - 06:43 PM, said:

You completely misread the OP. His first missiles were dumbfired just before lock, and it did not home in, even though the lock was achieved shortly after. He didn't lose the lock--on the contrary, he acquired it.

Fair enough, I absolutely misread it.

[evilauthor]

Leone, on 11 June 2017 - 06:19 PM, said:

Because you told the missiles to dumb fire at a location. They're only doing what you tell them to, no worries mate.

~Leone.

This right here. Well this would be the "in-universe" reason. The out of universe reason is of course game balance.

Even so, it would annoy me if I dumb fired a salvo of LRMs at a static target (say, a Mobile HQ in Incursion) only to have them veer away because I got a lock on an enemy mech.

[Athom83]

"Getting a lock" is technically only suppose to mean setting a range. LRMs are "supposed" to be dumb fire only, except with certain ammo types.

[evilauthor]

Athom83, on 12 June 2017 - 07:05 AM, said:

"Getting a lock" is technically only suppose to mean setting a range. LRMs are "supposed" to be dumb fire only, except with certain ammo types.

Well in TT, they are supposed to track, even the SRMs. They're just bad at it compared to Streaks because about a quarter of them tend to miss due to the RNG gods. Dumbfire LRMs and SRMs are completely distinct category of missiles in TT.

So I have no problems with LRMs tracking a locked on target... especially since losing a lock before the LRMs hit is very possible. Probable even with long ranged shots.

[Brain Cancer]

Yeah. TT LRM/SRM rounds actually have fairly "dumb" guidance packages to be robust enough to defeat the default heavy ECM environment (which in MWO, they don't- hahahahahahaha....), with more advanced LRM ammo (read: more expensive) being NARC compatible, semi-guided rounds, etc. etc. But guided they are.

http://www.sarna.net...g_Range_Missile

"First introduced in 2400 by the Terran Hegemony, Long Range Missiles are designed to engage the enemy at great distances at the expense of damage dealt. Adapted towards the profusion of electronic jamming on the battlefield and the effectiveness of current armor designs, these self-guided missiles are unique for using a special armor-piercing explosive warhead."

[Lightfoot]

Because canon BattleTech LRMs are self guided and are fire-and-forget once they acquire the target.... except in MWO! MWO has your mech magically communicating with each missile after they launch... but they can't tell fired missiles what target to hit once launched... because, because, well just because. -LoL

[Damnedtroll]

I use a lot of Dumbfiring with my lrm and it's very good, no lock warning and seems like less spreading, usefull at medium range, but not when you hide at 950m buddy...

Think of it like rocket fire and it's effective at 200 to 300m or on static object at long distance. I use lrm between 180 end 450m to deal damage, higher range shooting for me is for suppressing fire only to make enemy hide like coward.

Edited by Damnedtroll, 12 June 2017 - 04:16 PM.

[BumbleBee]

I'd be all for bringing it back on the proviso that it can only be done with TAG. Would make good spotters and scouts worthwhile again