279 replies to this topic

[Maker L106]

Alexander of Macedon, on 09 August 2017 - 07:45 PM, said:

The really telling point is that none of the lurmboat apologists have switched over to ATMs. If they actually meant their own arguments, they would.

After all, ATMs are very similar to LRMs in MWO, except they have much better potential damage per ton of ammo and far greater damage density per salvo. ATM24 can burn through 1t of ammo in a bit under 4 salvos for 270 max per ton, while LRM40 takes 9 salvos to burn 1t of ammo for 180 max. Fewer exposures, more damage per hit...

Oh. Right. To use ATMs well you need LoS at short-medium range and good fire discipline. That answers that.

Opportunity costs might have something to do with that. Especially on the IS side, they don't have a lock on alternative that doesn't say Streak in front of it. That said for the clan mechs the ATM's are good... but they can't saturate like LRM's due to ammo constrictions. Or so I'm told. Our group runs several setups on mechs like the Viper, Stormcrow and even some heavier models though that's usually a second weapon or at least gone moderately into.

We mix up MRM / ATM / LRM on a regular basis even running SRM splat assaults from time to time. But what's telling about that more with the ATM's particularly for clanners if that once you've confirmed ATM's on the enemy if they're isolated push. push them hard the ATM's fall off in CQB and can be hamstrung by AMS unless what you see Brain Cancer above doing in game.

In my opinion and observation the ATM's are one of the, if not THE most powerful missile weapon in the game. I've seen a set of 12's delte a mid or light in the right situations under light fire from another mech. And i'm talking MG + Tag light. They can do an obscene amount of splat damage and the LRM argument is void at that range... granted.

However if you're talking brawls, and lets face it most do, the team that's softer when in the brawl is the one at a disadvantage, that comes from early scouts of lights or fast mediums with NARC and Tag to cut through ECM coverage while maintaining that for the LRM users if caught out. If engaged in combat and you have a tag that should be on your main weapon keys or an easy button to hold so you can tag while you fight. Might not always be perfect but it will help.

Again, you'd be foolish to say ATM's are bad just because of their minimum range. They have a grotesque ability to **** allover things at 150-240 ish but outside of that they lose that edge somewhat and at extreme ranges both close and far you're just throwing weaker LRM's at range, and up close, phantom missiles with no damage to the enemy destroying your cooling economy. At least the clan PPC's can cover that point blank zone if you want to run them besides the ATM's.

[Edit]

Brain Cancer, on 09 August 2017 - 09:24 PM, said:

If I piloted IS robots, I'd wonder how well MRMs work with LRMs.

Unguided and poorer spread, but similar favorable range (around 500m) and unlike ATMs, no minimum range. Maybe that old LRM/SRM 9M hardpoint Archer with MRM 10's instead of SRM 6's.

Funny you should mention that our missile guy also runs an archer and he hasn't tried this out yet. Considering his past results with that Mech I may get him to run it and see how things work out... keep ya posted on that.

Edited by Maker L106, 09 August 2017 - 09:37 PM.

[Thorqemada]

MRMs are pretty weak for their spread and stream nature but offer an option for Mechs with low Hardpoint numbers to increase their damage output a little if they can mount the MRM30/40.

[Shifty McSwift]

OMG how is this thread still going??? Jujus foot is powerful and/or that title is one hell of a trap ;D

[Radbane]

Another sad bloke that thinks "skill" is all about Eye-To-Hand coordination and reflexes and putting a pixel onto another pixel ... sigh. I can pay Chess with my foot, does it mean it takes no skill to be good at it?

[Shifty McSwift]

Radbane, on 09 August 2017 - 09:40 PM, said:

Another sad bloke that thinks "skill" is all about Eye-To-Hand coordination and reflexes and putting a pixel onto another pixel ... sigh. I can pay Chess with my foot, does it mean it takes no skill to be good at it?

Yeah exactly, it is not an entire measure of skill at all, but it is a measure of a specific level of effort/skill required in that one particular aspect vs other weapon types. And again in itself not a bad thing, for me the issue comes in when that type of weapon is just flat out rewarded more in more circumstances, with less effort in that and other areas in many cases. Again that is a problem to me, nothing I would ever quit or really rage over, but it is an issue (on of many) with the MM and scoring systems more particularly.

It also just further indicates how ridiculous things are when are like this, and then you get people saying "check scores" etc to validate themselves, one guy I spectated got no locks of his own and was the literal last guy to die having never been targeted all game, with 1 kill as the crowd of enemy survivors descended on him and some 1100 damage, he really thought he did great, and that the problem was everyone else... Just one anecdotal example but it is more common in varying ways than that one story.

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 09 August 2017 - 09:48 PM.

[Alexander of Macedon]

Thorqemada, on 09 August 2017 - 09:20 PM, said:

ATMs are a Clan-Specific-Weapon the IS has no access too...but i understand that in a Clanners world all IS is "unskilled"...

I'm a diehard IS loyalist, but I run a few clan 'mechs in QP. No denying that they're ezmode though. ATMs are rock ******* solid, there's essentially zero justification to boating LRMs now. The saddest part is that dumbfired ATMs are basically MRMs with less spread, better damage, and a minimum range.

But for real though, IS LRMs don't even need to be boated because they're single-shot salvos instead of streams, making it much easier to oversaturate AMS when it's there. Strap a 15 or 20 onto an assault and you're going to be about as effective as someone carrying three times that many tubes at lurming but also have a bunch of other weapons to deal damage with.

Brain Cancer, on 09 August 2017 - 08:57 PM, said:

...except I use a mixed LRM/ATM build. Because they work well together.

Just look back at my post history. ATMs actually encourage good use of LRMs as well.

They also help soak up AMS fire that would otherwise decimate the more damaging ATMs, and the mix of velocity, flight path, and bonus close damage tends to result in some very positive match scores. Pure ATM builds are very fragile vs. AMS use, as they lose far more damage per missile killed than LRMs.



Despite Scorch's name, both of us top damage types were using mixed-missile builds here. For that matter, I think Thrase was the pure LRM boat of three of us, and you can see the relatively lower damage despite the kills. I ended up pretty much wiping Bravo (4 solo kills) out all by myself and got a random killshot on the ACH for good measure, and the two enemy survivors did so because they backed off while the VIP was getting taken down at the end.

See, I'm questioning how much of that was from the LRMs, how much of the effective damage (that is, that contributed to killing things rather than being random spread) was from LRMs, and how much more you could have done if you'd mounted an ATM/energy mix instead. I've pulled 1k damage trivially with ATM24 and backup micropulses, and that on lighter stuff than an Orion IIC that can't take as much damage or carry as much ammo.

Hell, it'd probably be killer to run something like this, since ATMs are so damn good at cutting things open. Just hover right in that ~200m range window and ******* murder things.

Edited by Alexander of Macedon, 09 August 2017 - 09:46 PM.

[Thorqemada]

Stefka Kerensky, on 09 August 2017 - 12:47 PM, said:

aaaaaah yes! and that's another side effect why lrm sucks: lurmers don't share armor.

Thye dont need too - they force the other Team into Cover, so they cant damage anyone, no armor-trade is needed, they force the other Team to spend tonnage to field Countermeasures reducing their firepower, they are able to assist over long range and obstacles but the assisted need to udnerstand that he must prevent the target from using LRM cover and bcs they often feel thats Killstealing (a Term not yet popped up in this thread disuccsing LURMplay afaiaa) they are angry bout that etcpp.

[Thorqemada]

Brain Cancer, on 09 August 2017 - 01:30 PM, said:

Look. Simply put:

A single LMG is a "support weapon" (read: nearly useless...

Imho you underestimate the psychological effect of the "MISSILE INCOMING" warning on many Players - maybe not the most exploitive very Elite Players but how often do you meet them - imho its great to have a single LRM Launcher as sort of a Battlefeild Harrassment and Control Tool granted that the IS-LRM-Versions are borderline heavy for such a usage but the C-LRM are that light and small you can put them to such a use with ease (which i did when i underwent a testrun with a Stormcrow).

Edited by Thorqemada, 09 August 2017 - 10:40 PM.

[Juju Shinobi]

Thorqemada, on 09 August 2017 - 06:32 AM, said:

You did notice that they lost?

Notice that only 3 people in my team were useful including me? 1 person can only do so much to carry. But it's okay. LRMs are super high skill. I spent 15 years in the alps trying my foot for this day. It all worked out

[Juju Shinobi]

davoodoo, on 09 August 2017 - 07:24 AM, said:

In lrm boat, yes ill do better than footage shown here. with 2 assists total, it was hard not to score those I would be impressed by 750 dmg with lasers, even if played with hands, though 2 kmdd is a little meh for that kind of pinpoint damage.

Dude, I've better stats than you piloting Dragons and Vindicators. goml

[SPNKRGrenth]

Oh hey, a big LRM thread about LRMs. It's very easy to boat LRMs wrong, play with them wrong, and be a potato who depends entirely on your team to carry you. Or you can be a good LRMs boat who sticks with the team, has decent backup weapons, suppresses dangerous targets, shares armor, pushes in a bit to hold his lock longer when he can get away with it, and punishes anything outside of 180m with constant salt.

I love my LRM80 Scorch almost as much as I love it with the shotgun build. I can be so aggressive with it and actually help my team by being in the fight, plus I can throw missiles over their heads to ruin an enemy assault's day 250m-350m to blind them and open them up for my team to carve apart. The backup lasers don't play nice either.

Now I could use the exact same loadout that I do so well with, and be an utter useless potato with it instead. Yeah getting big numbers with LRMs is easy, but using them effectively as part of the team is so much more satisfying than sitting behind a hill waiting for locks. The weapon itself does not have a very high skill ceiling, get lock and fire. But tactics and situational awareness can put them to very good use just the same as any other weapon.

[Dago Red]

Alexander of Macedon, on 09 August 2017 - 07:45 PM, said:

The really telling point is that none of the lurmboat apologists have switched over to ATMs. If they actually meant their own arguments, they would.

After all, ATMs are very similar to LRMs in MWO, except they have much better potential damage per ton of ammo and far greater damage density per salvo. ATM24 can burn through 1t of ammo in a bit under 4 salvos for 270 max per ton, while LRM40 takes 9 salvos to burn 1t of ammo for 180 max. Fewer exposures, more damage per hit...

Oh. Right. To use ATMs well you need LoS at short-medium range and good fire discipline. That answers that.

Honestly if the IS had ATM's I'd be on that in a hot minute.

As is I've swapped my couple of mechs that were running lurms to Mrm's just for the factor of being harder to nullify by the receiving target.

Flatter trajectory has been what I've been asking for in lurms for a long time. Don't think I'd consider either lurms or ATM's something you should boat exclusively though.

[ScrubLord1]

Thorqemada, on 09 August 2017 - 10:12 PM, said:

Thye dont need too - they force the other Team into Cover, so they cant damage anyone, no armor-trade is needed,

The fact that mechs can trade from cover throws your whole argument into the pit.

Thorqemada, on 09 August 2017 - 10:12 PM, said:

Imho you underestimate the psychological effect of the "MISSILE INCOMING" warning on many Players - maybe not the most exploitive very Elite Players but how often do you meet them

Yea, most of us don't spend all our time in T5 where players with the simplest understanding of cover positioning are regarded as "the very Elite Players"

[Lyoto Machida]

Erufen, on 09 August 2017 - 03:39 PM, said:

Funny you should mention that. You are aware that LRMs spread damage around the mech, right? So, pray do tell, how do you consistently force LRMs to hit a specific component? (you don't.)


750 damage is "poor" for an LRM boat?

Lol.

Please tell me more. (The build) No, seriously. Show me at least 5 screenshots of your LRM capabilities breaking or matching 750 damage.

There we have another A1 who didn't even break 150 damage, and he, too, was LRMs. I'm not entirely sure about the C1, but I would not be surprised, at all, if he went LRM40 and some lasers or tags.

LRMs take no skill at all. You have to be with your team, at the back of the push, but within their range to get these results. Sitting out back lobing LRMs at 1k+ range is where the problem starts.

Also, I have far, FAR more screenshots of over 1k damage with ballistic, SRM and laser boats than LRM boats.

Wil McCullough, on 09 August 2017 - 05:03 PM, said:

wow the salt from lurm apologists is real.

we have guys accusing juju of faking it, we have guys dissecting his performance and talking how "badly" he played, guys who claim 750 damage and 1 kill isn't impressive (yet have stats showing they can't do anything CLOSE to that on average).

incredible.

Here you go...literally the only game I played tonight. Just got out of it right now...how's this for cherry picked screenshots?

Had to rely on my trusty LL to take out a charging Bushwacker in my face at the end. Literally the first spin I took her out on after setting up skills for the first time.

ON1-V
3xALRM15 / LL / TAG

[LanXang]

Brain Cancer, on 09 August 2017 - 06:19 PM, said:

Sure. This is over the last month or so. Easy-peasy, even made sure they weren't all Polar matches so someone would go "EZMODEMAP". Didn't include the 1500 damage game because it was on Escort and even with the 4 solo kills, the logical cry of "DAMAGE PADDER" would rise. Even an 800+ game on Mining, though I just got KMDDs thanks to the team actually shooting what I was missile dumping on.

http://imgur.com/a/kclPd

Not too hard, really. You want to look for someone riding their missiles well, look for solo kills and KMDDs. That is, if MWO actually tracked those stats. Raw LRM damage you cut by a third and you're about where the numbers should be for direct fire equivalents (so about 500 direct damage = 750 LRM damage), because lurms spread even when you're taking your best possible shots.



It's more where all the problem lurmtaters stop, not where they start. Also, positioning gets more complex if your opponent has one or more AMS boats and/or can keep ECM up.

Take this example,



The enemy team loses hideous amounts of damage to six AMS because the lurmboaters sit just behind their team and spit missiles into the AMS wind once their team melts the outliers who decided to huddle on the mountain and die. Despite perfect spotters, they're neutered the rest of the game as shot after shot gets to cross the full umbrellas, yet neither comes down from his "ideal" position to contribute with taking some damage, close range shots on the corner or use their backup lasers until they're rushed, and end up the last ones to die instead.



That's a lot of damage shot out of the sky!

It ended 10-12, so even a little help with secondaries and taking hits would have probably turned it into a win for the lurmboaters. Instead, they were baffled by the AMS flak and refused to consider alternatives, and it got their team a loss.

It's not like ballistics or energy, since enemies can and do bring mobile countermeasures to your main guns. When they do, you either get creative on positioning/options or you're in trouble as far as contributing to a win.

Now do half as well with your foot. All those screens prove is that you can do as well as someone with direct fire weapons while using a weapon system that is so easy to use you can literally play it with your foot.

[denAirwalkerrr]

Speaking of fakiness.

He could use neuro helmet to fully control all actions of his mech and footage on webcam could be a robotized leg also connected to this helmet to mimic real leg actions.

Edited by denAirwalkerrr, 10 August 2017 - 03:00 AM.

[STEF_]

Thorqemada, on 09 August 2017 - 10:12 PM, said:

Thye dont need too - they force the other Team into Cover,

awwwwwww, what a pity that the "other team" does not care a $h1t to stay in cover, peeking just the 0,1 second to shoot ppc and gauss.

pfffffffffffffff

[BenAran]

I mean, I talked to Juju about this and LRMs... The thing they do well, to an extent, is to annoy people.
They annoy the everliving **** out of you. And if you are narced, you can stay in cover, which makes them even more infuriating.
But guess what? That is it.
They have no further benefit, their damage spreads all over mechs (and surprisingly tends to hit legs on Ravens, Uziels and some others) Their slow speed makes them susceptible to cover, you have a GIANT weakspot close to your mech, their large size (at least for IS, its a bit better for Clanners) makes them unweildy.
Oh and also you have the problem that AMS can counter it quite nicely and that you get abyssmal accuracy out of them.
All in all: LRMs are the Teemo of MWO. The Spy of MWO. They have no place in competetive but can wreck idiots like me fairly easily.

[Wil McCullough]

Lyoto Machida, on 10 August 2017 - 01:07 AM, said:

Here you go...literally the only game I played tonight. Just got out of it right now...how's this for cherry picked screenshots?

Had to rely on my trusty LL to take out a charging Bushwacker in my face at the end. Literally the first spin I took her out on after setting up skills for the first time.

ON1-V
3xALRM15 / LL / TAG

can't see your screenies. change your image hosting site imo.

then again, why are you cherry picking good performance games to show me? are you trying to get into an epeen contest with juju for my approval? i'm...

i'm a nobody. my approval isn't worth flea ****.

my approval also has nothing to do with the fact that juju did 750 damage and got 1 kill while playing a lurmboat with his foot. intended or not, that's a huge statement on how low the skill floor is for lurms.

the bolded part seems to keep eluding you.

[meteorol]

Someone who believes LRM take any noteworthy amount of skill isn't just terrible at this game, but videogames in general.