43 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

What I find interesting is how ATMs are eating legs while LRMs tend to hit higher. That is going to be a significant problem down the road.

the bigger problem is the minimum range. because doing 0 damage is worse than doing damage to legs.

[AngrySpartan]

Snowbluff, on 03 July 2017 - 11:01 AM, said:

EDIT: Also, are your fights 1v1 with Rules of Engagement? This puts too much on the pilot skill, especially with lasers involved. Personally what makes ATMS so bad is the minimum range and trying to maneuver into a sweet spot. It's gotten me killed quite a bit in queued matches, and in practice a lighter amount of SRMs were just better for me.

A better test would be to time the time-to-kill against a static target at different ranges using different missiles.

Yes, sort of. It's all mentioned in the comments to the videos in the post. Sometimes we tried to stay at 120 to simulate ATms without min range, sometimes over 270, sometimes we did free testing. And I agree, any duel is a pilot+luck+random things alltogether. E.g. when I was trying to pilot ATM orion (never did Orions before) it was just terrible - side cockpit and left sided build just threw me off completely, so there were no point to show not representative footage.

Agree with your missile assesment, except for SRMs. They still pack a punch and they are the best brawling weapon in clan arsenal.

MustrumRidcully, on 03 July 2017 - 01:16 AM, said:

What I might overall do to ensure that every missile launcher retains a niche, and assuming that Minimum Range won't go away entirely:

1) Lower the Maximum Range below that of the LRM. This means that LRMs will be better at extreme range spectrums, and coupled with their better indirect fire ability, they have a clear role they excel at.
2) Lower the Minimum Range to 90m, or give it a Mimimum Range of 120 with ramp-down damage. This ensures that SRMs are really still the best choice at the absolute lowest range, without harmstringing the ATM too much.
3) Increase missile health so it is not so easily intercepted by AMS. This compensates its low velocity and the low count of missiles.

The overall result would be that ATMs are really versatile in many tactical situations, being useful at most ranges, but the more specialized missile remain an edge for the extreme ends of ranges and situations.

Leaving minimum range at it's place will immediate remove the whole flexibility thing.
Just look at LRMs - they are garbage because they are not reliable! 50-75% of the time you have to rely on teammates, UAVs, NARCs to have a lock. 15-45% of the time you are punching bag, because you need to lock first, fire second, wait till the missiles will reach their target, and only than move to cover or make any action. 10% of the time you can't use them at all! You are not in control of the game when using LRMs, your decisions a lot less important than random factors. Moreover, most of the time people on receiving end of you damage can not respond, which is highly annoying.

Let's have a look on ATMs with minimum range: forget about indirect fire and NARCs, you'll have to rely on your own locks. In order to maintain sufficient damage you'll have to be around frontline, so you will be pushed inside your minimum range a lot. Add insane damage output we have now. In the end ATMs will be like LRMs - you won't be in full control of your game, you may have a blast and a lot of damage, but in the end you may lose because of 1 ERML Myst Lynx inside your minimum range. And it will be annoying to receive ATMs damage, cause it's just too much burst damage when it actually works.

Minimum range has to go, entirely. Damage should be scaled down in some way as well. ATMs will never be a balanced and satisfying weapon unless these two problems will be solved first.

Edited by AngrySpartan, 03 July 2017 - 12:32 PM.

[Ruar]

AngrySpartan, on 03 July 2017 - 12:28 PM, said:

Minimum range has to go, entirely. Damage should be scaled down in some way as well. ATMs will never be a balanced and satisfying weapon unless these two problems will be solved first.

Personally I like the minimum range if they are going to have the added damage. However, if they drop the damage then I can see no reason for the minimum range requirement.

What I hope does not happen is they keep the high damage and have their min range reduced. At that point there is no reason to take any other missile. ATMs need to be a conscious decision that provide pros and cons compared to other missile systems. If they are only pros then there is a problem.

[davoodoo]

Ruar, on 03 July 2017 - 12:41 PM, said:

Personally I like the minimum range if they are going to have the added damage. However, if they drop the damage then I can see no reason for the minimum range requirement.

What damage?? they already have lower damage than comparable tonnage of csrm while also having worse spread than even srm6.

At 7 tons atm12 does 36 dmg, compared to that 7 srm4 or 4x srm6 + srm4 will do 56 dmg at lower spread and cooldown

Drop damage from 3 at brawl range and they will still be useless.

Edited by davoodoo, 03 July 2017 - 01:57 PM.

[Ruar]

davoodoo, on 03 July 2017 - 01:57 PM, said:

What damage?? they already have lower damage than comparable tonnage of csrm while also having worse spread than even srm6.

At 7 tons atm12 does 36 dmg, compared to that 7 srm4 or 4x srm6 + srm4 will do 56 dmg at lower spread and cooldown

Drop damage from 3 at brawl range and they will still be useless.

Except they won't be useless since they can be used at longer ranges than SRMs as well.

[Damnedtroll]

davoodoo, on 03 July 2017 - 01:57 PM, said:

What damage?? they already have lower damage than comparable tonnage of csrm while also having worse spread than even srm6.

At 7 tons atm12 does 36 dmg, compared to that 7 srm4 or 4x srm6 + srm4 will do 56 dmg at lower spread and cooldown

Drop damage from 3 at brawl range and they will still be useless.

They are doing a lot more damage past 270m than srm ! People talk a lot about minimum range to compare to srm, can we also talk about maximum range ?

With a little comedy we can say : SRM are totally useless, they do 0 damage after 270m, holy cow, we need to put their maximum range to 1000m if not, they are useless, lrm do a lot more damage at long range, why srm do not ?

Just calculate the weight of srm and lrm to equal what a atm12 can do on a battlemech and also the ammo associate with it and look at the number of slot you need to do that !

Edited by Damnedtroll, 03 July 2017 - 03:14 PM.

[davoodoo]

Yeah beyond 270m they do 2 dmg.

so 7 ton launcher fires slow as **** 24 dmg
while a 5 ton lrm20 with much better ammo efficiency fires 20 dmg and you can strap artemis for extra ton for much better spread. Oh its also faster and more missiles mean less get shot down
or we can just get 2 ssrm6 for 450m bracket, which at 6 tons do 24 dmg at better spread.

Im not gonna use launcher just because i can use it up to 1100m if it doesnt beat even horribly bad lrm20 which you should be ashamed for using.

Edited by davoodoo, 03 July 2017 - 03:27 PM.

[Damnedtroll]

So we need 1 ton of srm and half a ton of lrm do do the job of a single ton of ATM to cover all the scenario possible and be able to do the same job. So if i bring 4 tons of ATM i need 4 tons of ammo of SRM and 2 tons of LRM..

So if we look at this:

ATM12 7t + 4t ammo = 11tons and use 1 hardpoint and 8 critical slot

3SRM6 and one LRM15 to do the same job and 6t ammo= 14t and use 4 hardpoint and 11 critical slot...

Yes ATM not perfect but you have 3 free tons for backup weapons to care of the minimum range, like 3 ermed for 21 damage, not bad ?

Edited by Damnedtroll, 03 July 2017 - 03:38 PM.

[Jackal Noble]

Ruar, on 03 July 2017 - 02:20 PM, said:

Except they won't be useless since they can be used at longer ranges than SRMs as well.

Except they are pretty much useless. Damage potential to high hell if your lobbing what is tantamount to flying marshmallows.

ATMs are pretty sheisty tbh. I won't use them.

I mean maybe. If I have a supernova with 4 atm12s and I'm shooting at a King Crab in the open fields of Polar Highlands. And it's legged.

Maybe then.

[Jackal Noble]

As far as the no minimum range for less damage idea, that could go two ways;
either scale proportionately from say 0.5-1 damage up to the 3 at the apex, or just give them a flat damage up until after the current minimum range( like 1.5 a missile)

Further, you know damn sure that no IS tryhard will support that idea, considering how long they have had to deal with minimum range on LRMs (which is still in place) and shorter range for SRMs. So I'm gonna go with a cold day in hell when ATM minimum range gets pulled. Sucks but is true.

Which is fine, because they suck. A single AMS can pretty much nullify them. The only other good characteristic of these is the range, and even that kind of sucks. What kind of missile loses it's damage potential after what amounts to like 2100 ft 700 m? Like are they leaky missiles? are they leaking explosive fuel? Get outta here

Edited by JackalBeast, 03 July 2017 - 03:52 PM.

[davoodoo]

Damnedtroll, on 03 July 2017 - 03:36 PM, said:

to do the same job

You got that wrong, THEYLL DO BETTER JOB.

Maybe if atm had 400 projectile speed like srm or lower spread, more missiles to shoot down and better ammo efficiency of lrm15,
Or maybe if it had shorter cooldown than those.

But atm, id rather get 14 tons on 4 hardpoints than atm12.

Edited by davoodoo, 03 July 2017 - 04:31 PM.

[Damnedtroll]

davoodoo, on 03 July 2017 - 04:27 PM, said:

But atm, id rather get 14 tons on 4 hardpoints than atm12.

Yeah if you have 4 hardpoint... if you don't have it your screw to be short range or long range with srm or lrm... It depend what you want. ATM bring the capacity to engage at different range with limited amount of hardpoints... With many hardpoints and the tonnage available... srm and lrm is the best choice.

[FireStoat]

Let's be honest. If Clan got a hold of IS MRM's but with the clan 'efficiency' weight adjustment, those would see actual use. With the minimum range on top of a narrow window of the missile having damage worth taking, ON TOP of small missile count with weak missile health - A$$ to Mouth missiles are DOA.

I actually envy IS at this point. Not enough to give up my clan A+SRM though.

[davoodoo]

Damnedtroll, on 03 July 2017 - 04:44 PM, said:

Yeah if you have 4 hardpoint... if you don't have it your screw to be short range or long range with srm or lrm... It depend what you want. ATM bring the capacity to engage at different range with limited amount of hardpoints... With many hardpoints and the tonnage available... srm and lrm is the best choice.

Let me illustrate how bad it is.

id rather go with this despite it being horribly underarmed.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...4e35c1479397c1d
than use atms on those 2 limited hardpoints

mrms are what versatile missiles look like, atms are just pure crap.

Edited by davoodoo, 03 July 2017 - 04:54 PM.

[50 50]

If the medium range band was increased that might help a bit.
At the moment they have a greater portion of their range as 'long range'.

No-one seemed to like the guided missile idea as a way to balance out the close range damage.
What about reducing the rate of fire of the individual missiles?
This would need to be coupled with the increase of individual missile health as a more spaced out firing rate makes them even more susceptible to counters.

[Khobai]

Quote

Except they won't be useless since they can be used at longer ranges than SRMs as well

except at longer ranges they do less damage than comparable weight in LRMs. And at shorter ranges they do less damage than comparable weight in SRMs.

ATMs get no damage advantage whatsoever. Not over SRMs and not over LRMs.

The one and only advantage ATMs are supposed to have is the flexibility of being useful at all ranges... which they dont actually get as long as they have a min range.

ATMs should have no min range. Their damage should be lowered if thats what they need to do to balance them with no min range. Im fine with the damage being like 2.5 instead of 3. Or whatever it needs to be.

ATMs should also have a max range of 810m because I dont believe they should outrange LRMs. LRMs are bad enough as is without needing another weapon directly competing for their role. ATMs and LRMs need to be kept distinctly different so both have a place in the game.

And the missile health and ammo count on ATMs needs to be increased too. 1.5 health per missile and 90 ammo per ton should be fine.

Quote

mrms are what versatile missiles look like, atms are just pure crap.

mrms are pretty crappy too. mainly because of how slowly they stream out which makes it very difficult to hit moving targets with them.

they need to reduce the volley delay on mrms. they probably need to increase the velocity more too. And maybe give them a little bit more of a range advantage over SRMs (lets say twice the range of SRMs which would be 540m).

Edited by Khobai, 03 July 2017 - 07:38 PM.

[Ruar]

Y'all seem to keep missing the fact that ATMs give you punch at short, medium, and long range all in one missile system. While that punch isn't as much as the dedicated missiles, the fact there is all that range makes up for it.

You honestly can't expect to have a weapon that is better at damage than SRMs, is able to effectively engage at medium range better than LRMs, and still have them do long range damage on top.

[The6thMessenger]

Ruar, on 03 July 2017 - 08:14 PM, said:

Y'all seem to keep missing the fact that ATMs give you punch at short, medium, and long range all in one missile system. While that punch isn't as much as the dedicated missiles, the fact there is all that range makes up for it.

Until we count low missile speed aggravated by low tube count that AMS can easily shut down, low ammo/ton that means its extremely inefficient at long range, high cd means not good DPS. Minimum range means you're ****** inside it, which makes no sense for a weapon supposedly should be capable of combat at ANY range, paid by having low ammo/ton count, tube count, and just piain heavy.

Ruar, on 03 July 2017 - 08:14 PM, said:

You honestly can't expect to have a weapon that is better at damage than SRMs, is able to effectively engage at medium range better than LRMs, and still have them do long range damage on top.

We can, we will, and we do. Even if it does better damage/missile than SRMs, minimum range hampers that, stream-fire hampers that. ATM3 which is the same weight as an SRM6 without artemis does 9 damage close range, but an SRM6 while doing 12.9 damage, it also does so in one salvo. As we go higher up, say ATM12, the stream gets longer tool, also CD shoots up to 5s from 4.

To put it this way, you wouldn't brawl with ATMs, so why would you even count it over the SRMs?

Okay, long range. The LRM15 at 3.5t, is equivalent at ATM6 too. Yes it does 18 damage between 120m-270m, but if you're gonna focus at that range why the **** bring LRMs? Go bring SRMs. Backup wise, that is good, but really if people are getting in range between 120m-270m at you, whose to say that they won't stay within the minimum range? Likewise isn't the point of ranged weapons to maintain relatively long range? At the distance where the LRMs excel, which is at mid-range, the ATM6 does only 12 damage at the cooldown of 5s, compared to the LRM15 doing 15 damage at the cooldown of 4.3s. That translates into a severely shorter DPS for the ATMs. And if you're the type that can maintain such distance, which pretty much many specialists are capable of, LRMs are far better.

We pay for such versatility by having a heavy weapon, low ammo count and tube-count. Unfortunately all those jarring drawbacks, the weapon system just didn't deliver.

Again, i say 0m-180m-540m-900m for 3/2/1 damage. At 0m-180m, even if you deal 3 damage/missile, it's untenable cause the range is really short and you'd waste time just getting in range, when you could have done more damage while shooting more missiles while in mid-range. Likewise SRMs do better damage between 180m and 270m, while at the same time shoots at single volley. At 540m-900m, your range is just as far as LRMs, but realistically it has the worst ammo/ton and thus you'll be doing low damage, ending up wasteful.

180m-540m is just right for a mid-range weapon, LRM20 or LRM15 does better damage over ATM20 or ATM6, and so if specializing LRMs as LRMboats, it's still far better.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 03 July 2017 - 09:37 PM.

[Ruar]

The6thMessenger, on 03 July 2017 - 09:30 PM, said:

Until we count low missile speed aggravated by low tube count that AMS can easily shut down, low ammo/ton that means its extremely inefficient at long range, high cd means not good DPS. Minimum range means you're ****** inside it, which makes no sense for a weapon supposedly should be capable of combat at ANY range, paid by having low ammo/ton count, tube count, and just piain heavy.



We can, we will, and we do. Even if it does better damage/missile than SRMs, minimum range hampers that, stream-fire hampers that. ATM3 which is the same weight as an SRM6 without artemis does 9 damage close range, but an SRM6 while doing 12.9 damage, it also does so in one salvo. As we go higher up, say ATM12, the stream gets longer tool, also CD shoots up to 5s from 4.

To put it this way, you wouldn't brawl with ATMs, so why would you even count it over the SRMs?

Okay, long range. The LRM15 at 3.5t, is equivalent at ATM6 too. Yes it does 18 damage between 120m-270m, but if you're gonna focus at that range why the **** bring LRMs? Go bring SRMs. Backup wise, that is good, but really if people are getting in range between 120m-270m at you, whose to say that they won't stay within the minimum range? Likewise isn't the point of ranged weapons to maintain relatively long range? At the distance where the LRMs excel, which is at mid-range, the ATM6 does only 12 damage at the cooldown of 5s, compared to the LRM15 doing 15 damage at the cooldown of 4.3s. That translates into a severely shorter DPS for the ATMs. And if you're the type that can maintain such distance, which pretty much many specialists are capable of, LRMs are far better.

We pay for such versatility by having a heavy weapon, low ammo count and tube-count. Unfortunately all those jarring drawbacks, the weapon system just didn't deliver.

it's a jack of all trades, of course it's going to be weaker. I'm amazed you honestly want ATMs to replace SRMs and LRMs while having the best of both worlds.

It's apparent you truly don't understand the value of range. While there is an argument the ATMs need to have more health due to the lower missile count, the rest of the items you list are all reasonable drawbacks for a weapon with all that range and the ability to do variable damage.

[The6thMessenger]

Ruar, on 03 July 2017 - 09:36 PM, said:

it's a jack of all trades, of course it's going to be weaker. I'm amazed you honestly want ATMs to replace SRMs and LRMs while having the best of both worlds.

Stream-fired means it loses out on brawling already. Pair that with low missile count, AMS just chews through the low amount of salvo it does. 4xSRM6 would do better than 4x ATM3s at close range, hell 2x LRM10 would do better at mid to long range too.

If anything, i'm amazed how uncritical you are. Yes ATMs are supposed to be jack of all trades, best of both worlds. But it already doesn't do better than SRMs and LRMs, even paid by low ammo count, then we get this **** of a range distribution that makes this even less of a jack-of-all-trades weapon and more of jack-****.

Ruar, on 03 July 2017 - 09:36 PM, said:

It's apparent you truly don't understand the value of range.

It's apparent that you're uncritical, also a ****. Are we really going to result in just insulting people than just throwing arguments? Throw all the **** you want, I have numbers and reason on my side.

Ruar, on 03 July 2017 - 09:36 PM, said:

While there is an argument the ATMs need to have more health due to the lower missile count, the rest of the items you list are all reasonable drawbacks for a weapon with all that range and the ability to do variable damage.

It would be reasonable if it weren't for the minimum range, quite simply it's not a fair trade. We paid for all that weight, low ammo count, for the versatility -- essentially a weapon system that works on ANY range. What we got is **** at close-range.

Damnedtroll, on 03 July 2017 - 03:36 PM, said:

So we need 1 ton of srm and half a ton of lrm do do the job of a single ton of ATM to cover all the scenario possible and be able to do the same job. So if i bring 4 tons of ATM i need 4 tons of ammo of SRM and 2 tons of LRM..

So if we look at this:

ATM12 7t + 4t ammo = 11tons and use 1 hardpoint and 8 critical slot

3SRM6 and one LRM15 to do the same job and 6t ammo= 14t and use 4 hardpoint and 11 critical slot...

Yes ATM not perfect but you have 3 free tons for backup weapons to care of the minimum range, like 3 ermed for 21 damage, not bad ?

My go-to in my LRM TBR nowadays is TBR-S 2x SRM6A [200] + 2x LRM15A [720], CAP, so i'm not that screwed. SSRM works well on lights too.

Although if we go 2x SRM6A + 2x LRM15A, versus 2x ATM12 -- both of which have same net tons, the ATM does 72 damage up close, while mix only does 55.8. Mid-range, 2x LRM15A does 30 damage, while the 2x ATM12 does 48. So the equivalent weight of the 2x SRM6A on the ATM12 is pulling it's weight above 270m.

Yes, I agree that on mixed-builds ATM would work far better on most cases especially mid-range, between 120m - 450m.

But then at under 120m? ATMs are useless versus a good-ol SRM, doesn't that defeat the point? Even if i had 4x ERML for 28 damage, i'll be doing only 28 damage for my ATM boat, versus 53.8 damage on my hyrbid LRM-SRM boat. If enemies could get within 270m, forcing you to your backup SRMs, wouldn't it mean that they could just stay within 120m too? If you're planning on maintaining range above 270m anyways, why not just allot for a proper 4x LRM10A with better DPS? ATM12 x2 does 9.6 DPS mid-range, 4x LRM10A does 10 DPS, even works better outside of the 2-damage range of the ATMs.

The main point of hybridizing SRMs and LRMs is that you don't get screwed over at short-range. With ATMs, you do 120 - 450m better, but really goes against the spirit of the LRM-SRM hybrid which is not get screwed over by range, cause the 120m will bite you in the ******* ***.

I'm game for nerfing close-range damage to 2.5/missile if it means there's no minimum range.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 04 July 2017 - 12:29 AM.