94 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

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SNV with ATMs though? You could almost feel guilty for how fast stuff dissolves.

unless they have AMS. Then only your missiles dissolve.

[Spheroid]

If people ran metamasters like I tell them to in CW, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. It is possible to have have great hardpoints, adequate cooling and a very strong AMS shield all in one package. In my opinion triple or quad AMS would create slot shortages on desired heavies and assaults. Dual is the optimum. For extremely limited investment you are negating vast amounts of damage.

Edited by Spheroid, 03 November 2017 - 05:41 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

MischiefSC, on 03 November 2017 - 04:34 PM, said:

Aside from the Awesome there's no IS assault that's very good with LRMs. Too slow, because you can't safely run an XL.

SNV is better at 90 tons than any IS assault is, aside possibly from the Awesome.

I'm waiting for them to get the Salamander out there. Aside from Alex likely making it look great, it's the modern-era IS missile assault, which would get minimum 6M/2E on it's base chassis, a jump-capable variant, and less of a barn-door hitbox killfest. Or even the Viking, which has a missile boat AND a conventional dakka version, 90 tons of walker, but far less chassis variation to work with.

And MG legs.

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Awesome is just quirked so hard for LRMs - and it's still bad.

SNV with ATMs though? You could almost feel guilty for how fast stuff dissolves.

Until you hit that guy with the AMS cluster. If LRMs were decent, ATMs would suffer horribly from even a modest increase in AMS use. They're savaged thanks to the smaller tube count, since for the same tonnage, AMS has 12 missiles vs. 20 to destroy for an CLRM20 + Artemis. Given, I throw 20 or so ATMs at something with my usual CLRM30, and that makes a real impression on anything until you start seeing that one guy with his Kit Fox BRRRRTing an assault robot to near no damage.

[MischiefSC]

Honestly I don't have a lot of issues with AMS vs ATMs but I use ATMs with mixed loadouts. Like onion 2x with 2 or 3 cerml, lb10x and 3x ATM 9. It's over 100 damage at 120-200m or so. With 9s you can shoot 3 launchers with no ghost heat so at sub 200m you land at least half the 27 missiles even against dual AMS - I've tested it.

[Lykaon]

Khobai, on 03 November 2017 - 02:55 PM, said:

yeah but even the best IS mechs always have 1 AMS

the best omnipod configurations for omnimechs dont even have 1 AMS usually


also clans need more AMS on certain mechs to shoot down the better LRMs that IS gets. As well as to make up for the fact that other omnimechs often have 0 AMS.

whereas IS dont need better AMS because clan missiles are much easier to shoot down. plus every IS mech (except that one cicada) is capable of carrying at least 1 AMS.

dont know why thats so hard to understand.


theres also the fact that clan missiles !@#$ing suck and making them worse is just stupid. if all you want clanners to use is laser vomit, then nerfing clan missiles even more is a good way to accomplish that.

Sigh....

The "best" I.S. mechs have an AMS hardpoint but how many have it native to the stock loadout? how many of the "best" builds in actual play utilize the AMS? Having access to AMS is not the same as having AMS.

If the "best" build on an Inner Sphere mech does not utilize the AMS slot how is this different from a clan Omni not utilizing it's potential access to AMS (or 2 or 3 or soon 4 for the Pirhana battlemech)

No difference because not utilizing a potential is equally applicable. The root argument would only be valid if I.S. Defaulted with AMS for free on all chassis with the AMS hardpoint and clan mechs did not. But both factions must pay for AMS in slots and tonnage. So not taking AMS is equally applicable as is the potential to take AMS.

Arguing the clan omnimech quirks are lost for mixing pods is also of a doubious nature because of how few omnimech builds in regular use utilize homogenous pods. Most used mixed pods to utilize the advantages of being an Omnimech.

And another point that has been ignored is potential AMS maximization per faction.

If optimized for AMS the Inner Sphere team has 21 AMS the clan team would have 27 AMS (30 if we include the Pirahana instead of a kitfox but I would take the 3 ECMs over 3 more AMS)

So if we are only taking about maximizing AMS and what faction has an edge it's the clan. But I know this is really an impractical if still true point to make because of actual practice. Sort of like how in practice the "best I.S. mech builds do not actually include an AMS and how ALL clan mechs can take AMS but most do not.

Claiming that they (clan) need better ams because I.S. LRMs are less garbage (I refuse to say better they are after all still LRMs) is MOOT because ...

ONE: most of the time teams are mixed tech and when they are not it's faction warfare. In faction warfare how often do we see I.S. LRMs in a significant enough volume to merit taking the ANY AMS? Why? when as a clan team you can stack ECM like it's free.

TWO: I.S. LRMs are less garbage because they weigh TWICE as much and take up more crit slots for the 10/15/20 tube launchers. If this advantage is intended to be "bought back" with clan AMS perliferation than why even bother giving an advantage? Just let the clan half tonnage tiny launchers use massed volley fire as well. it doesn't seem to me like potential clan AMS boating was a design choice to balance I.S. LRMs clan LRMs are more vulnerable to AMS because they are TINY!

And onto why I.S. may in deed need better AMS, Clan mechs for the same tonnage get twice the missile tubes! Novacat-B vs ANY inner Sphere heavy mech. The Novacat-B's loadout would weigh 59 tons if it were an I.S. mech. For the record a completely stripped Archer has 63 tons free and has no engine armor or weapons.


Ask yourself, what are the best LRM carriers in the game per weight class and how many of those are I.S. mechs?

My list would be

Light mech: Cougar
Medium mech:Huntsman
Heavy Mech: Novacat
Assault mech: Super nova

Was that "hard to understand?"

Edited by Lykaon, 04 November 2017 - 12:00 AM.

[Appogee]

Khobai, on 03 November 2017 - 11:48 AM, said:

if you have to run a sub-optimal loadout to use it, thats basically the same thing as not having it, because no one is going to run a sub-optimal loadout just for 1 AMS.

Vs IS, where you don't even get a choice to run anything but the sub-optimal loadout.

#FirstWorldClannerProblem

Edited by Appogee, 04 November 2017 - 12:05 AM.

[Khobai]

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Vs IS, where you don't even get a choice to run anything but the sub-optimal loadout.

if were talking about IS having AMS though, it means clanners are using missiles, which is still worse than an optimal loadout for an IS mech. Because missiles, and especially clan missiles, are just plain bad.

Quote

Ask yourself, what are the best LRM carriers in the game per weight class and how many of those are I.S. mechs?

My list would be

Light mech: Cougar
Medium mech:Huntsman
Heavy Mech: Novacat
Assault mech: Super nova

Was that "hard to understand?"

but LRMs are still bad, so whats your point really?

if youre using LRMs youre already playing a suboptimal loadout regardless of whether its Clan or IS

my whole point was that missiles are bad and dont need to be worse.

that includes both IS and Clan missiles. Neither need to be worse.

Edited by Khobai, 04 November 2017 - 12:13 AM.

[Papaspud]

the only answer here is..... NERF IS...IS OP!!@!!!!!!

[Bulletsponge0]

Mr Death, on 03 November 2017 - 01:12 PM, said:

No complaint was made. Just a valid question. AGAIN. Clan has 2 mechs with 3 ams and an incoming 4 ams version. Is there an IS one in TRO or incoming that can do same. TROLLS BE DAMNED a valid question.

it is a valid question i guess. but, what is the underlying purpose of asking the question? What would be so magical about having an IS 3or 4 AMS mech in game?

[Koniving]

Khobai, on 03 November 2017 - 12:02 PM, said:

huh? two mechs with 1 AMS each can shoot down most missiles from a clan lrm boat.

clan missiles are super easy to shoot down because of their ripple fire.

This second statement is actually not true (in the case of a Clan missile boat)
AMS gets easily overwhelmed regardless, and as a person who frequently uses twin AMS on my IS mechs I can tell you that LRMs from the Clans actually can fire at such an overwhelming pace that the AMS actually stops destroying missiles at any reasonable rate... as a result of the ripple fire.

This is because missiles each have individual health pools of 1 to 3 HP. A single AMS delivers 1.5 damage per second (or +0.75 for each overload node taken up to a maximum of 3 damage per second). Yes, this means twin AMS could churn out 6 damage per second, taking out 6 LRMs or 3 SRMs each second.

Where this falls apart is AMS automatically targets the closest missile within a certain minimum range. Unfortunately this minimum range isn't far enough to afford a full half second of fire, and takes a quarter of a second to change targets, meaning it literally has 0.25 seconds to destroy a target. Consider also that the server runs at 100 frames per second, which is also why damage registration issues occur whenever the server FPS drops or the missiles start hitting in a hundredth of a frame.

As such, you enter a state where the twin AMS are trying to target identical missiles, with less than 0.25 seconds to destroy it, and regardless of success or failure it has just that long to select a new missile that, in that amount of time, has already hit you, then it needs to choose another, but that hit you, then it chooses another, but that hit you, and in effect it enters a state where it is destroying less than 1 missile every 3 seconds despite having 6 damage per second. Then the IS mech is destroyed.

IS missiles on the other hand, yes they hit all at once and in small amounts are harder to destroy, but in large volumes Clan AMS, even with just 2, has a better chance of destroying at least some of them per volley because it cannot be as overwhelmed except in the case of old LRM-5s. Even then, well you can destroy 6 missiles in a second.So the case that Clan LRMs (From an LRM boat) are easily destroyed is actually a fallacy. From a boat, they are virtually invincible.

I stated Clan AMS against IS LRMs, but in truth this is true of all AMS. AMS has a better chance against IS LRM boats than Clan LRM boats due to the fact that in volley fire, there isn't enough frequency to individual missiles to overwhelm the AMS's, uh, "AI" or should I just say the mechanics of how it works? Either way ripple fire overwhelms AMS. The same is true for MRMs against AMS, because the ripple fire stream of enough missiles basically makes AMS completely ineffectual, since AMS "ticks" down the health of a specific missile until it reaches 0 or it hits, then spends 1/4th of a second picking a new missile within a minimum range and starts again. This is actually why almost no MRMs end up destroyed. And potentially why MRMs have terrible damage registration (they fire in their stream so quickly that they hit in between each 100th of a second, thus their explosions don't exist client side.)

From a single launcher or two fired at the same time, or any amount fired at the same time, "Clan" LRMs are 'worthless'
Fired in tandem from a boat carrying 4 to 6 or more launchers, they are nearly impossible to shoot down with just 2 AMS.

IS LRMs fired from a single launcher or two at the same time they are very effective against AMS when compared to the same for Clan LRMs.
IS LRMs fired in tandem still lose roughly the same number of missiles per volley. Where Clan LRMs significantly reduce how many missiles they lose.

There is an edge case if you're firing on a farther target that has one AMS and another mech allied to that has its own AMS, but this is because the overwhelming effect is not occurring to at least one AMS.

TL;DR:

When it comes to boated LRMs, IS LRMs are easily shot down against even odds of AMS (2 AMS of either IS or Clan origin on a single mech) while Clan LRMs become invincible after several seconds of sustained fire.

Edited by Koniving, 04 November 2017 - 07:55 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

As such, you enter a state where the twin AMS are trying to target identical missiles,

not if theyre on different mechs

[Mr Death]

So much Vitriol. Now I WANT TO campaign for the Blackhawk KU. Not only does it give IS an omni but 3 ams.

[Y E O N N E]

Mr Death, on 04 November 2017 - 10:40 AM, said:

So much Vitriol. Now I WANT TO campaign for the Blackhawk KU. Not only does it give IS an omni but 3 ams.

And, more importantly, all the guns.

[Mr Death]

Edit: Possible 3 ams

[Brain Cancer]

Nigh-universal AMS hardpoints are, in a sense a symbol of how screwed up PGI's view of most missile launchers is.

Virtually everything is guaranteed to have an option to protect themselves from them, but the weapon they got slapped on to protect against is so weak, nobody bothers.

If we could add a few tons of defensive equipment to blunt energy or ballistic weapons, the line would be out the door. Especially energy.

[FupDup]

Bombast, on 03 November 2017 - 11:39 AM, said:

Its in the same place where the IS 12+ Energy Hard Point mech is.

But the Black Hawk KU (12 lasers) only has 2 AMS, barring any PGI changes to its stock hardpoints.

[Brain Cancer]

FupDup, on 04 November 2017 - 11:42 AM, said:

But the Black Hawk KU (12 lasers) only has 2 AMS, barring any PGI changes to its stock hardpoints.

Chassis with AMS already stock generally get an additional AMS hardpoint to go with it. The AS7-K comes with an AMS stock, but then PGI gave it a second hardpoint to mount an additional one. The Komodo would get a third hardpoint to go with a pair of stock AMS mounts, at the least. The BHKU-A probably would too.

Edited by Brain Cancer, 04 November 2017 - 11:48 AM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

FupDup, on 04 November 2017 - 11:42 AM, said:

But the Black Hawk KU (12 lasers) only has 2 AMS, barring any PGI changes to its stock hardpoints.

If/when we get it (along with the Komodo & Raptor) I will be a happy pilot

[Y E O N N E]

Jay Leon Hart, on 04 November 2017 - 11:48 AM, said:

If/when we get it (along with the Komodo & Raptor) I will be a happy pilot

Somebody is just Like farming at this point.

But it's okay, I'm generous.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Brain Cancer, on 04 November 2017 - 11:48 AM, said:

Chassis with AMS already stock generally get an additional AMS hardpoint to go with it. The AS7-K comes with an AMS stock, but then PGI gave it a second hardpoint to mount an additional one. The Komodo would get a third hardpoint to go with a pair of stock AMS mounts, at the least. The BHKU-A probably would too.

As a BattleMech the Komodo should, but the black Hawk-KU being an OmniMech suggests it would not get an extra, as other OmniMechs haven't.

Yeonne Greene, on 04 November 2017 - 11:50 AM, said:

Somebody is just Like farming at this point.

But it's okay, I'm generous.

What can I say? The argument of 11E on an IS Light is very compelling.