9 replies to this topic

[Odd Thomas]

Have been using the 2 X LB20-X + 4 X SRM build

Was thinking of switching the SRM's for 2 X ATM9's

I guess this question goes for the MCII-2 as well.

Anyone try this out? More effective?

Thanks

Edited by Odd Thomas, 19 August 2017 - 07:32 PM.

[Gagis]

I tried it. The ATM's spread too much and fly too slowly to be really effective. I switched back to SRM's.

[PaquIS]

Yes I have, but I went for 4xATM12 and 2xMPL with XL340. Thats 144 damage from missiles alone within their 120-270m effective area. It will simply shred lights and mediums. Plus its not unusual to see a fresh assault having open components from one full volley. Unlike SSRM or LRM the ATM seems to not spread as much.

The trick to make it work is to obviously stick with your team so nobody can get too close to you and really focus on shooting the missiles between that 3 damage range. You can fire at 270-500 meter range if someone is in the open and you are sure you will hit. But never fire beyond 500 meters. The damage will be so low that its just waste of ammo.

With this build I have actually had the best average results so far on the Scorch. I have tried the brawler build with LBX+SRM and while the damage output is good the trick is to get close. And when you do get close the Marauders hitboxes which are good at range becomes quite poor. The side torsos are really easy to hit. I have also used 2xgauss + 2xLPL but then all your firepower is in the fairly low hanging arms which forces you to expose most of your mech to shoot anything.

Edited by PaquIS, 19 August 2017 - 10:02 PM.

[PaquIS]

Looks like I remembered the engine size wrong, but anyways here is the build incase you are interested:
https://www.dropbox....Scorch.jpg?dl=0

Getting 1000+ damage games one after another has never been this easy.

[Yumoshiri]

PaquIS, on 19 August 2017 - 10:00 PM, said:

Yes I have, but I went for 4xATM12 and 2xMPL with XL340. Thats 144 damage from missiles alone within their 120-270m effective area. It will simply shred lights and mediums. Plus its not unusual to see a fresh assault having open components from one full volley. Unlike SSRM or LRM the ATM seems to not spread as much.

The trick to make it work is to obviously stick with your team so nobody can get too close to you and really focus on shooting the missiles between that 3 damage range. You can fire at 270-500 meter range if someone is in the open and you are sure you will hit. But never fire beyond 500 meters. The damage will be so low that its just waste of ammo.

With this build I have actually had the best average results so far on the Scorch. I have tried the brawler build with LBX+SRM and while the damage output is good the trick is to get close. And when you do get close the Marauders hitboxes which are good at range becomes quite poor. The side torsos are really easy to hit. I have also used 2xgauss + 2xLPL but then all your firepower is in the fairly low hanging arms which forces you to expose most of your mech to shoot anything.

did you consider putting this in a supernova?
personally, i did try atm's on a scorch: 3x atm6 + 2x lbx20

atm6's have better spread than 9's...and equal spread to atm3. you can take 2 atm 3's to save half a ton; but they create more heat.

[Koniving]

In general, you will have an issue with practicality and situational execution.

What I mean is this:
SRMs reload fast and don't rely on any gimmicks and though they spread, it is very predictable.
ATMs practically need lock ons, are slower to reload, and their spread is not predictable.

Against large, slow targets SRMs are clearly the better choice. In chance encounters, SRMs may also be the better choice against lighter pests especially if ECM starts coming into play.
In most cases against lighter pests, though, you'll want ATMs. If your aim isn't particularly good, you'll want ATMs. If your Scorch isn't very quick with torso twisting, you'll want ATMs.

If your weapons layout relied heavily on the arms, you'd also want ATMs (if you know how to use your arms well via the "o" crosshair; if you use armlock anyway, then go with SRMs).

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I'd only recommend ATMs if you go all in with 4 ATM12s. ATMs get torn up by AMS pretty bad if you aren't using a whole lot of them.

[PaquIS]

Yumoshiri, on 20 August 2017 - 11:54 AM, said:

did you consider putting this in a supernova?
personally, i did try atm's on a scorch: 3x atm6 + 2x lbx20

atm6's have better spread than 9's...and equal spread to atm3. you can take 2 atm 3's to save half a ton; but they create more heat.

I dont have the A variant of the Supernova, but I dont see why it wouldn't work on it as well. Positioning and keeping the distance is going to be harder with the XL325 compared to the Scorch's XL360, but you get two more energy hardpoints so more firepower for self defence if someone gets within your minimal range.

I just feel like the smaller ATM's are not all too great unless you can pack lots of them. Like this:
https://www.dropbox....0Build.jpg?dl=0

Koniving, on 20 August 2017 - 11:58 AM, said:

In general, you will have an issue with practicality and situational execution.

What I mean is this:
SRMs reload fast and don't rely on any gimmicks and though they spread, it is very predictable.
ATMs practically need lock ons, are slower to reload, and their spread is not predictable.

Against large, slow targets SRMs are clearly the better choice. In chance encounters, SRMs may also be the better choice against lighter pests especially if ECM starts coming into play.
In most cases against lighter pests, though, you'll want ATMs. If your aim isn't particularly good, you'll want ATMs. If your Scorch isn't very quick with torso twisting, you'll want ATMs.

If your weapons layout relied heavily on the arms, you'd also want ATMs (if you know how to use your arms well via the "o" crosshair; if you use armlock anyway, then go with SRMs).

Actually out of all lock ons the ATM's are clearly the most accurate ones. SSRM's goes all over the place and will pretty much hit every component even if shot at point blank range. LRM's spread too but its not as bad. ATM's however seems to seek quite well on center and sidetorsos. On faster mechs they tend to hit legs more.

If you only have 2-4 missile hardpoints I would go for 2-4 big ATM's instead of SRM6+A. Damage output is just so much better and SRM's (even with artemis) truly become somewhat accurate at 150m or less. So when having something like that in a big and slow mech it can often be hard to really get to use them without taking too much fire in return. The 144 damage within the optimal range of 4xATM12 is just so much that you will often get open CT or ST from assault after just one volley.

The biggest weakness of ATM's is really the AMS. One AMS is not too bad when you have several big ATM launchers or lots of smaller ones, but two or more AMS will pretty much shut you down.

I dont think the 120m minimal range is as much of a downside as people make out of it. 120m is pretty short range so someone really needs to commit on killing you by coming that close which makes them vulnerable to your teammates. Also before he can get that close you can usually land at least one full volley from ATM's which means he will more likely have open components which you can then start working with your backup weapons.

Dakota1000, on 20 August 2017 - 12:04 PM, said:

I'd only recommend ATMs if you go all in with 4 ATM12s. ATMs get torn up by AMS pretty bad if you aren't using a whole lot of them.

Exactly! Not just because of the AMS, but also because they really become scary weapon when you have lots of them. If you are planning to take 2-3 small ATM's as some sort of backup weapon, dont bother, go for SRM's instead.

Edited by PaquIS, 21 August 2017 - 06:03 AM.

[Koniving]

PaquIS, on 21 August 2017 - 06:03 AM, said:

Actually out of all lock ons the ATM's are clearly the most accurate ones. SSRM's goes all over the place and will pretty much hit every component even if shot at point blank range. LRM's spread too but its not as bad. ATM's however seems to seek quite well on center and sidetorsos. On faster mechs they tend to hit legs more.

Are you firing your Streaks all at once or one at a time?
If you fire them all at once, yes Streaks will go everywhere.
If you fire them in sequence, they have a predictable pattern of where they hit and they repeatedly hit those areas time and time again.

Streaks by MWO's game standards are programmed so that each missile tries to find a body part that no other missile is locked onto. Sadly this means that they will try to find a different body part per missile, with specific priorities. If every body part is taken, the missiles go for the lowest priority points.... the end result is basically worthless. And yes, some will try to hit rear torsos while some are trying to hit front, which is the only reason you get any of them bulking up on the torsos because usually the mass of them just go for limbs when fired in mass.

When fired in sequence, you will have one missile going for a limb and one going for a torso almost every time for a Streak 2 with somewhat common being two going for a torso and very rare both go for a limb.
A streak 4 tends to have two go for limbs and two for a torso. Sometimes 3 for one or the other, but it is pretty predictable.
A streak 6 will try for 3 and 3 though up to 5 could go one way or the other rarely.

In the end what you have is a highly predictable pattern as well as a reliable, predictable barrage of missiles. In fact though PGI planned on going "Stream fired" streaks for the Clans, having each individual streak fire independently resulted in them not choosing different targets (since it only listens to who has targeted what at the time of launch), and since torso parts are higher priority, it only went after the 5 torso sections and nothing else. Thus why all streaks fire in bulk, even when people thought it gave the Clans a huge unfair advantage when only they had Streak 4 and 6.

Try chain firing your streaks, see if they improve any. Might be surprised.

Also I should note:
ATMs do nothing at point blank. They have a minimum range. Not sure if 90 or 180 meters.

[PaquIS]

Koniving, on 21 August 2017 - 06:38 AM, said:

Are you firing your Streaks all at once or one at a time?
If you fire them all at once, yes Streaks will go everywhere.
If you fire them in sequence, they have a predictable pattern of where they hit and they repeatedly hit those areas time and time again.

Streaks by MWO's game standards are programmed so that each missile tries to find a body part that no other missile is locked onto. Sadly this means that they will try to find a different body part per missile, with specific priorities. If every body part is taken, the missiles go for the lowest priority points.... the end result is basically worthless. And yes, some will try to hit rear torsos while some are trying to hit front, which is the only reason you get any of them bulking up on the torsos because usually the mass of them just go for limbs when fired in mass.

When fired in sequence, you will have one missile going for a limb and one going for a torso almost every time for a Streak 2 with somewhat common being two going for a torso and very rare both go for a limb.
A streak 4 tends to have two go for limbs and two for a torso. Sometimes 3 for one or the other, but it is pretty predictable.
A streak 6 will try for 3 and 3 though up to 5 could go one way or the other rarely.

In the end what you have is a highly predictable pattern as well as a reliable, predictable barrage of missiles. In fact though PGI planned on going "Stream fired" streaks for the Clans, having each individual streak fire independently resulted in them not choosing different targets (since it only listens to who has targeted what at the time of launch), and since torso parts are higher priority, it only went after the 5 torso sections and nothing else. Thus why all streaks fire in bulk, even when people thought it gave the Clans a huge unfair advantage when only they had Streak 4 and 6.

Try chain firing your streaks, see if they improve any. Might be surprised.

Also I should note:
ATMs do nothing at point blank. They have a minimum range. Not sure if 90 or 180 meters.

I see. I wasn't aware of that. My only experience on streaks is with the Mad Dog with 6xSSRM6 which I fired in groups of three. But I rarely played that mech (propably have less than 20 games in it) and always preferred the SRM's instead. Also out of my ~100 mechs none has LRM's equipped. Plus now I even turned the Streak Dog into ATM Dog so I dont even have streaks on any mech anymore.

So I dont have a whole lot of experience with lock-on missiles. But I do like the ATM's tho. I just feel the big launchers are bit OP, at least on solo play. Simply because of the crazy alpha you get and the tracking they do. If it would spread all over then it wouldn't be all that great, but the fact they seem to track on center mass quite well makes them so powerfull.

The minimum range for ATM is 120m as I mentioned on my previous post.