Ruar, on 11 August 2017 - 03:34 AM, said:
Biggest difference in your example is the laser boat has to stick his mech out into the open to do damage while the LRM boat can sit behind cover the entire time. I could point out risk vs. reward but I doubt it will make you think differently.
Someone's got to get LOS for the LRM to fire, so your team is taking fire for the idiot at 900m spewing derpmissiles. Moreover, IDF is the worst firing mode- maximum spread, minimum accuracy, most difficult to predict.
I've watched bad lurmers far too many times. Firing on nothing save indirect mode is like using your direct fire guns at past effective range because you're afraid to get hit, and usually gets the same results- it's why you see people boating 60,80 LRMs at once.
Let's take a look at Juju, who gets most of his hits in IDF mode. He dumps 255 damage worth of missiles (not that all of them will hit) on his first target, which is getting hammered and secures the kill, beginning to hit it when it's torso is exposed, someone else knocking it to red and his missiles getting the last few points. No KMDD as the guys up front actually did most of the meaningful (and damage, period) damage.
He then targets the Battlemaster, dumping another 300 or so damage into it, but failing to destroy anything (but it'll get him a KMDD). Then another Battlemaster, again for about 300 damage- which is just enough to destroy the internal structure on the already exposed side torso (and again, KMDD). He doesn't have Artemis, so when he gets direct face shots on the MCII-4, it's the same spread and so he barely manages to scrap the armor off one torso before 48 ATMs (which have integral Artemis, figured into it's tighter spread anyway) at just about perfect range (300m is 3 damage at best, just over 2 at worst if he has any range mods) in a nice tight pattern reduce him to mush.
He does take a few potshots at another Anni-1E in there, but it's got dual AMS and basically chews the chainfired LRMs to dust. No real damage inflicted, and it moving up meant he had to leave his comfy spot and run around to the other side if he wanted to spam missiles. (Which he did).
754 damage. Two components destroyed to show for it and a lot of spread damage that sandblasted him a few KMDDs, plus a secured kill when his missiles snuck the last bits out of a red CT. That's your rewards for hiding with LRMs and not getting your own locks.
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Notice how there aren't multiple threads talking about how OP ATMs are? It's because they require the user to poke out of cover to shoot. Make LRMs a direct fire weapon which require the user to expose their armor and most of the complaints would go away.
LRMs require the user to poke out of cover to shoot effectively, as well. Big launchers without Artemis are hideous spread weapons that waste more damage on dirt and random components than anything in the game short of perhaps MRMs- who generally at least get twice the hits from the same tonnage in tubes to make up for it.
No LOS = No Artemis = nothing but damage padding "I'M HELPING" fire from your missile boat with it's fat ol' launchers that does minimal effective damage to a target. Effective fire takes LOS, which means you have to at least poke and expose armor on a missile boat that wants to be useful. It's why I say ATMs are natural "trainers" for people using LRMs, because if you're going for ATM shots at all, you're also generally setting up for a proper LRM salvo as well.
On the other hand, the terrain-bypassing arc of LRMs means that a direct-fired salvo can chase a target past some cover and still deliver a best-hit. If you sight in and fire and the only reason lock is maintained is someone else spotting (that is, it becomes indirect), it's still the tighter Artemis-boosted shot as spread is determined at launch, not in-flight. Bad players just use parasitic locks and it's max spread from launcher to target. Good players use IDF capacity to minimize exposure when missilepoking and to increase overall accuracy.
For me, IDF capacity means:
1) Someone got a lock? I can begin lock-on from cover, which minimizes exposure. Less exposure is critical for actually living through shooting people with LRMs, for some reason.
2) I can peek out and look for that target and fire immediately with LOS, getting best spread.
3) If it looks like someone else is maintaining lock, I can duck back down- otherwise, I have to risk return fire and all the facetime keeping my lock entails. Not that I won't to get the hit, but it means more armor goes down the hole. My
Orion IIC rarely ends a match with it's left side intact anyway, so the fewer hits, the longer the missiles rain.
4) Depending on how much attention I got, I can either continue to chase the target with IDF-only fire (inefficient, but better than doing nothing) or poke again (not from the same spot) or a combination of both.
Not that I don't get my own locks and prefer them, but without IDF as it is, a lot of what I can do as a missile boater gets worse. Trading IDF capacity for better direct-fire capacity makes the weapon less flexible, and it doesn't get the increased damage or higher velocity of ATMs to make up for it...nor would anything that enhances direct fire allow me to continue doing what I do.
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Usually as soon as such a change is mentioned though the LRM people break out the torches and pitchforks.
Because generally, those "changes" are suggested by someone who barely uses LRMs in the first place, and the end result would be another direct-fire clone. This tends to irritate the people who actually attempt the gitguds with missile launching.
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