99 replies to this topic

[Dogstar]

I saw a post the other day saying that an AMS was worth the equivalent of ten tons of armour. Now I'm assuming that that's in an ideal situation where all your AMS ammo runs out just at the end of the match so that you've got the full benefit of it all but is taking AMS worth it in less than ideal situations like when you only use half the AMS ammo? Or when the enemy has no missile boats (admittedly a rare occurrence)? What if I always take all Radar Deprivation nodes and know how to use cover?

How effective does AMS need to be for it to be worth replacing a couple of heatsinks/lasers/tons of armour?

Can someone who actually knows their maths work it out, or at least point me in the right direction to work it out myself?

Edited by Dogstar, 24 March 2018 - 01:47 AM.

[El Bandito]

From my old old thread of 2014. With AMS RoF nodes it should become even more efficient, at least 40% more efficient.

Quote

http://mwo.gamepedia..._Missile_System

According to the site above, it takes around 9 AMS ammo to down 1 LRM. Therefore:

180 LRMs per ton
Times(*)
9 ams per missile
Equals (=)
1620 AMS rounds

Which means it takes 0.81 tons of AMS ammo (since AMS ammo is buffed to 2000)... to destroy the equivalent of 1 ton of LRM ammo.

It takes 32 armor points to make 1 ton or armor. 180 missiles theoretically deal 180 points of damage upon full contact, which translates to 5.6 tons of armor. Which means 1 ton of missile ammo can cause up to 5.6 tons worth of armor damage.
Since it takes 0.81 ton of AMS ammo to negate a full ton of LRM ammo, by investing in just 1 ton of AMS ammo, you can save potentially up to 6.9 tons of armor. That's what I call a good deal. If the full company takes 1 AMS each, it can potentially save the armor equivalent of FOUR Atlases (Max Atlas armor is 19 tons) from LRMs, and far more if it manages to shoot down NARC pod.

Granted, AMS does have the tendency to shoot at missiles that are not going to hit anything anyway, but even if 50% of the ammo is wasted, that's still 3.5:1 ratio, which is great! And as I mentioned, just by shooting down a NARC can literally save an entire mech on occasions.

Edited by El Bandito, 24 March 2018 - 01:55 AM.

[The Basilisk]

The thing with AMS is that it gets exponentially more effective the more ppl bring it in a match.
If you are alone with a single AMS and you get shot with IS twin 15 in the right moment it will do you little good.
If your team brought AMS on every second mech and you bunch together the enemy can shoot all the missiles he wants to.

[Sjorpha]

Since the weapons it defends from are so situational, that makes AMS very situational too. Obviously it's quite easy to think of scenarios where AMS is good and "worth it's weight", but that doesn't mean it's worth taking "just in case" those scenarios happen.

The opportunity cost for taking AMS varies a lot between builds, some builds line up perfectly with 1.5 tons and 2 slots left and nothing better to use them on, such as the 6MPL Crab 27B or some variants of the BNC-3M XL400 Wubshee. In those cases it makes a lot more sense to take it since you're not giving up a heatsink or other important things to fit it. If you have to take less DHS or a suboptimal engine/weapons loadout to fit AMS I'd say it's very rarely worth it.

In Faction Play it's a different story, especially in scouting. You know the map so the likelyhood of missiles is more predictable, and in scouting AMS on the IS side helps against both streaks and ATMs which are quite popular amongst the scouting clanners.

AMS quirks and multiple AMS makes a big difference, the 2AMS wolfhound can be nigh untouchable in some scenarios.

So in general I'd say not worth it on most builds in quickplay, sometimes worth it when you're choosing mechs for a map/mode favoring missiles and/or if it slots perfectly on your preferred build.

[Agent 0range]

AMS is particularly useful against ATM as they have a small missile count and high damage also they are common. I personally don't play QP much beyond events but I do stack AMS for FP and cant be bothered to change builds. dual over loaded AMS on a black knight was killing 150-400 missiles a match I almost never saw a match without a bunch of ATM LRM and MRM launchers.
for the 3 tons of the double AMS i consider that worthwhile towards winning a match
stat from memory of the last event

Edited by Agent 0range, 24 March 2018 - 02:35 AM.

[LordNothing]

there are certain builds i do where the ams is a central feature. but i dont just throw it on every build for the hell of it.

the problem isnt the ams though, its very good at what it does. its the missiles, they are terrible and if i can do with maneuver and good positioning that which the ams does automagically then im going to do that and save the 1-2 tons.

Edited by LordNothing, 24 March 2018 - 02:39 AM.

[roekenny]

Depending what time of day it's well worth it as spuds come out hard at the start of prime time eu that ams can counter at least 3 heavys on red every game.

[Exilyth]

Ams is feast or famine: Either the enemy shadows the sun and you're happy about every ams on your team or there are no missiles and you waste 0.5t * ams + 0.5t-1.0t * ams ammo. There are also times where your team can get by with just some hard cover and times where the two ams on your team completely deny that one enemy Lurmer. and then there's Lurmageddon where you get polar highlands, the enemy is full of Lurms and you're the only player with ams.

So, is ams worth it? Often.

If you've got ECM, you're likely to need less ams - unless you're a triple ams kitfox.


Edit:
Talking about multiple ams - if you would like to know or can spare some time, please look at this thread:
https://mwomercs.com...t-multiple-ams/

Edited by Exilyth, 24 March 2018 - 03:53 AM.

[Abisha]

AMS is worth it's tonnage on assaults especially the laser version.
Heavy might be worth the tonnage (if you have fast heavy no, slow heavy yes)
Medium/light Not worth it.

[B0oN]

AMS, is it worth it ?

All day, always .

[Kroete]

Abisha, on 24 March 2018 - 03:28 AM, said:

AMS is worth it's tonnage on assaults especially the laser version.
Heavy might be worth the tonnage (if you have fast heavy no, slow heavy yes)
Medium/light Not worth it.

Over 60 tons you should be able to invest 0,5-1,5 tons of teamutility,
and if you dont want ams, take at least a bap or light-cap.

And ams has another selling point: No ams, no cry!

Edited by Kroete, 24 March 2018 - 03:36 AM.

[Dogstar]

Abisha, on 24 March 2018 - 03:28 AM, said:

AMS is worth it's tonnage on assaults especially the laser version.
Heavy might be worth the tonnage (if you have fast heavy no, slow heavy yes)
Medium/light Not worth it.

Oddly enough I think of it the other way around - lights and mediums (without ECM) can really benefit from AMS because they don't have much armour in the first place so the 'efficient armour' that AMS can provide is actually a weight _saving_

Heavies tend to concentrate on sheer firepower so I don't fit them there and assaults only if there's spare tonnage

What I almost always do is buy 100% Radar Deprivation for each mech, in fact it's usually the very first thing I skill up.

Maybe what I should ask is 'how often is AMS ineffective?'

Edited by Dogstar, 24 March 2018 - 03:37 AM.

[Abisha]

Dogstar, on 24 March 2018 - 03:36 AM, said:

Oddly enough I think of it the other way around - lights and mediums (without ECM) can really benefit from AMS because they don't have much armour in the first place so the 'efficient armour' that AMS can provide is actually a weight _saving_

Heavies tend to concentrate on sheer firepower so I don't fit them there and assaults only if there's spare tonnage

What I almost always do is buy 100% Radar Deprivation for each mech, in fact it's usually the very first thing I skill up.

weird because Lights really are fast enough to use rader depression optimal i see no use to waste 1,5 ton on light/medium mech for this.
assaults are slow and large they getting burst down by LRM if being in the open why do you think Assaults mostly are hiding?. it's do to this factor.

[El Bandito]

Dogstar, on 24 March 2018 - 03:36 AM, said:

Oddly enough I think of it the other way around - lights and mediums (without ECM) can really benefit from AMS because they don't have much armour in the first place so the 'efficient armour' that AMS can provide is actually a weight _saving_

Heavies tend to concentrate on sheer firepower so I don't fit them there and assaults only if there's spare tonnage

What I almost always do is buy 100% Radar Deprivation for each mech, in fact it's usually the very first thing I skill up.

Maybe what I should ask is 'how often is AMS ineffective?'

In FP it is always effective. What do you see in Scouting? SSRMs! And more SSRMs! And on invasion mode, there are tons of LRMs flying around now that there is an event for it. Not to mention several veteran FP units are running dedicated ATM mechs. AMS makes ATM mechs cry.

[Khaze]

I've found that even if I'm in my triple AMS kitfox with the relevant nodes, it rarely helps my team actually push and consider their positioning accordingly. People seem to be more afraid of the flashing INCOMING MISSILES than the missiles themselves. Bad positioning kills teams faster than any number of LRM boats.

The equation changes, of course, if you can instill in your team the fact that you can safely ignore incoming missiles, but that's a whole other ballgame.

Edited by Khaze, 24 March 2018 - 03:44 AM.

[Kargush]

It also helps if the AMS mechs communicate the state of their AMS. If you have only two, it's nice to know they're about to run dry, or are empty, especially if the enemy team took a major in LRMs.

[justcallme A S H]

I haven't had AMS on a mech in... A long time.

It's called using cover. Rarely died to LRMs, suffered from them or even been hurt by teams using them.

[Khobai]

I still think you should only get missile warnings if you have AMS equipped

Other weapons dont warn you when theyre about to hit you. LRMs shouldnt either. Unless you have AMS...

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 24 March 2018 - 05:06 AM, said:

I still think you should only get missile warnings if you have AMS equipped

Other weapons dont warn you when theyre about to hit you. LRMs shouldnt either. Unless you have AMS...

That is one way to increase the effectiveness of missile weapons without actually changing them at all.

But remember why we got the missile warning in the first place. <smh>

[Krivvan]

My best description of AMS is that its a crutch. I don't mean that it's useless, and I don't mean that it can't help people. I mean that what AMS does is serve as a survival tool that you don't necessarily need. And if you get better at positioning play and cover usage to the point that you no longer need AMS at all, then you end up saving all the tonnage that you would've spent on AMS.

At the same time, the act of using AMS may hamper one's ability to get better at said positioning and cover usage.

In my eyes the same even goes for ECM, but ECM is at least a much better value for cost than AMS is.

Of course, what Sjorpha says applies very much as well. It's a sort of crutch but worse is that it's a situational one. There might be a match where you felt it was very useful, then you end up in the next match where the entire enemy team is direct fire. ECM at least retains some use against any kind of team.

This all doesn't include crazy niche scenarios like a 1v1 against a streak boat and knowing you only need to survive one extra volley to win the fight. Or if you for whatever reason know for a fact that an enemy team will be ATM heavy. But that counts as an extremely risky hard counter that may still not be worth it if you're confident of winning without it.

Edited by Krivvan, 24 March 2018 - 05:43 AM.