71 replies to this topic

[Lux Monolithic]

ATM's absolutely do not suck. I wreck with them.

[DashFire61]

Illuminous Owl, on 20 July 2017 - 05:19 PM, said:

ATM's absolutely do not suck. I wreck with them.

You've obviously never used real ATMS, these are pathetic.

[davoodoo]

These can be used against clueless, but anyone worth their damn will rush at you and stay below 120 making them overall pretty subpar.

and before someone comes and says "no min range but reduce dmg" it will make them even worse as there wont even be niche situation where they excel...
Also they are already very slow and with lock they are horrible in brawl. So anyone saying zomg 36 dmg per hardpoint, go **** yourself, ill fire that load and either twist or lose st.

Edited by davoodoo, 22 July 2017 - 10:12 AM.

[Maker L106]

Uh okay... so read through about half the topic here but the ATM complaints seem to be the same as the LRM complains but worse.

The LRM and to that same measure ATM's are support weapons. You don't duel with these... or brawl... i mean sure if your caught out, shoot what you can that's effective. But these are the kind of weapon you move into a fight knowing full well you're equipped as a front line support mech. Not a brawler, not a narc guy etc:. As long as role delegation is a thing then yes the ATMs work good if the enemy team hasn't stacked AMS to the ceiling.

Now I'll admit I don't like ATM's, but that's a primary function of what I do. I'm the Narc guy or the bumbling assault up front who calls things out or face rolls into groups for pushes. I'm not going to be the support guy behind me throwing ATM's and absolutely anihilating the armor of the stuff I'm shooting at. There's nothing "wrong" with the ATM's as they sit when they're used properly. Same as the Snub Nosed PPC / Light PPC. they're very situational or specific fix tools that need to be taken in that light and with that understanding to do the jobs they're intended or needed to do.

Light mechs with ECM a problem, Light PPC on light mech chasedown mech. etc:

While not always an elegant solution you can't have everything in one weapon. or even in boated lasers. Something is going to catch you or you're just not going to have the pressure you can apply with things like AC20's or RAC's. I wish more people would adopt the mentality that what you have in front of you is a tool box.

You select the right tool for the job your intending on doing. That's all that matters. Your player skill and team will make up the rest of the game.

[MischiefSC]

ATMs doing 1 damage inside 120m, for that matter eliminate all minimum ranges. It just kills weapon viability. Look at LRMs, stock PPCs, ATMs. They get some niche use in QP, either by bads or farming bads.

Cit weapons to 1/2 damage inside min range. IS/Clan LRMs, ATMs, PPCs. Do that and you'll see them all used more seriously without really mucking up their other balance factors. None of those weapons would suddenly be OP if they were not rendered worthless by use of the W key by either side. Having them weak up close in return for strong at mid-long range is a good idea. Having them be worthless (literally) up close in return for mediocre at range is bad.

[Y E O N N E]

MischiefSC, on 22 July 2017 - 10:35 AM, said:

Cit weapons to 1/2 damage inside min range. IS/Clan LRMs, ATMs, PPCs. Do that and you'll see them all used more seriously without really mucking up their other balance factors. None of those weapons would suddenly be OP if they were not rendered worthless by use of the W key by either side. Having them weak up close in return for strong at mid-long range is a good idea. Having them be worthless (literally) up close in return for mediocre at range is bad.

TBQH, I'd rather they increase range and velocity on the standard PPCs than remove the minimum. PPCs are good at one thing, and one thing only, and 540 m is not really wide enough of a berth for them to do work unless you also change other things about them (and you can, but...I don't know that that is the direction I would want to go because things get spammy).

[DashFire61]

They should be like MWLL did it, three seperate weapons, HE ATMs, St ATMs, ER ATMs. HE do 4 each and work like streaks but they are slow and have a max range of 150, St have a max range of 650 and min of 80, they do slightly more damage than LRMs and travel 1.5x times as fast, ER also do slightly more damage than LRMs and they travel twice as fast, they have a max range of 1250 but a min range of 350.

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 22 July 2017 - 10:44 AM, said:

TBQH, I'd rather they increase range and velocity on the standard PPCs than remove the minimum. PPCs are good at one thing, and one thing only, and 540 m is not really wide enough of a berth for them to do work unless you also change other things about them (and you can, but...I don't know that that is the direction I would want to go because things get spammy).

Eliminate all min range, just make 1/2 damage in min range. Any weapon that's useless at point blank is a niche weapon at best, generally considered terrible. Nothing you would see in comp play for sure. Who would take a min range weapon to Solaris? The new comp queue? Nobody who's going anywhere.

[FupDup]

DashFire61, on 22 July 2017 - 10:49 AM, said:

They should be like MWLL did it, three seperate weapons, HE ATMs, St ATMs, ER ATMs. HE do 4 each and work like streaks but they are slow and have a max range of 150, St have a max range of 650 and min of 80, they do slightly more damage than LRMs and travel 1.5x times as fast, ER also do slightly more damage than LRMs and they travel twice as fast, they have a max range of 1250 but a min range of 350.

That would be far worse than when PGI made regular Clan ACs to simulate LBX slug firing.

[Y E O N N E]

MischiefSC, on 22 July 2017 - 10:54 AM, said:

Eliminate all min range, just make 1/2 damage in min range. Any weapon that's useless at point blank is a niche weapon at best, generally considered terrible. Nothing you would see in comp play for sure. Who would take a min range weapon to Solaris? The new comp queue? Nobody who's going anywhere.

Well, 1v1 is a very silly case. In 1 v 1, two 'Mechs of equivalent mass are unlikely to do enough damage to each other to take them out before closing to brawl until you get to the Assault class. So I wouldn't typically take PPCs at all for that, ER, Snub, or otherwise.

In a team game, though? If I've got only two PPCs and I'm somehow at 90 meters, I'm usually already dead. Sometimes you get lucky and your opponent is either damaged or inept and you can take them out, but usually you are just out-DPS'd by that point. The issue I run into more often than minimum range is lack of optimum range. Trades start around 800 meters and standard PPCs are just out-classed while IS ERPPCs are hard to cool enough to pressure with once the engagement reaches the more typical 500-600 meter bracket. I have found that 'Mechs with a 10% range quirk that gives them a base range of ~600 meters to start puts the standard PPC in a very comfortable place. Some skill nodes to 660 or so and that's essentially the perfect spot for their current rate of fire, they just need a bump in velocity to go with it to settle it out (1400 m/s would be great).

[DashFire61]

FupDup, on 22 July 2017 - 10:59 AM, said:

That would be far worse than when PGI made regular Clan ACs to simulate LBX slug firing.

The only other way to correctly implement ATMs would make half of the other missle platforms obsolete, which would be to make them work like they are supposed to.

[AnarchyBurger]

ATM seem to be great at their prime range... Unfortunately its more of a brawl range and isn't really needed in that slot. They do seem way hot for what they do also.