30 replies to this topic

[UnkerZ]

I've recently went back to missile eating fun for a while with regards to the mechanism behind AMS / LAMS, and some of the statistics displayed in the mechlab coupled with the quirks behind them - I tried searching online but can't seem to find a clear answer, so wanted to ask around:

AMS ROF Quirks - Assuming it applies for both AMS and LAMS - does this mean LAMS shoots more and thus heats up more as well? Or does it follow its stats heat?

AMS Damage - Assuming that it applies to both AMS and LAMS, this would be amplified by any ROF quirk?

AMS Range - Is damage constant at all range, or falls off from effective to max? At what range does AMS attempt to fire? Max range or effective? If so, is it spending more ammo/heat to kill a missile at max range?

Projectile Speed - ??? I thought AMS fire is technically instant, so this should be irrelevant?

Also random question, does each AMS target a different missile or all target one for faster killing? Possible scenario is SRMs when each AMS doesn't have enough time to shoot down within the travel time, but four to one theoretically should.

Currently planning to work on my ultimate missile eating bot.. it seems that Nova's triple AMS with 30% ROF (correct me if im wrong - 3 X 1.3 = 3.9 AMS ROF effective) + guns is a better deal than PIRs quad ams (and nearly no guns) and no quirks.

[Prototelis]

Tripple AMS nova and kitfox are the best AMS-boats around.

That said, AMS isn't super duper effective unless everyone is doing it, and not really effective at all against IS lrm volleys.

[Chrome Magnus]

Prototelis, on 30 December 2018 - 07:52 AM, said:

Tripple AMS nova and kitfox are the best AMS-boats around.

That said, AMS isn't super duper effective unless everyone is doing it, and not really effective at all against IS lrm volleys.

I second the KF/Nova
Tripple AMS can mitigate damage fairly well but no it's not a complete shield. Still I've saved many a slow mech while it retreats to cover/out of LOS. Yes they often still take damage but the KF kept them alive/viable. I figure even if just 1/3rd of the missiles I shot down would have hit then a ton of damage has been stopped when there's considerable LRM's present.

[Mister Maf]

Neither of these replies actually answer the OP's questions, which are actually things I just kind of took for granted and never really thought about. I'd like to know the answers to these, too.

Edited by Mister Maf, 30 December 2018 - 09:30 AM.

[NRP]

I've been thinking about building an AMS mech too. Forgot about the Nova and Kitfox. I'll see if I already own these.

I'd also like to know the answers to the OP's questions.

[Phoenix 72]

Well, I did some research into AMS during Lurmaggeddon in the summer, but I am going from memory...

ROF is just doing the same thing Cooldown does for normal weapons. It allows you to fire quicker, ie use up more ammo during the same time frame. So you do not do more damage, you just fire faster. I do not think anybody ever bothered to check whether this causes more heat on LAMS, because at the time LAMS was considered to be completely non-viable.

What I do remember is that 9 AMS missiles shoot down 1 enemy missile, before skills. So should be 6 missiles with skills. In ordinary testing (during games), 1 ton of AMS ammo (2200 shots) with skills should take out anything between 300 and 350 missiles.

I remember reading somewhere that it was doing less damage on the longer part of their range, but I think there was enough confusion about the statement that I would put it down as "not sure".

I have been randomly trolling LRMers with an Anti LRM Crab 27 with 13200 shots of AMS ammo, Kitfoxes with 5 tons of ammo, Nova's with 5 tons of ammo, 2 AMS and 1 LAMS, and several other combinations.

The problem with that approach is that too many of the missiles come through your anti-missile screen to catch enough of them. Best match I ever had was shooting down a little over 1600 missiles with my Nova. And then I died and we lost the game. My Crab never survived long enough to shoot more than ca. 6500 ammo. The Kitfox did slightly better, because of the ECM.

The problem is that you spend a lot of viability of your build to try and cancel out missiles. This ends with your personal damage contribution suffering... So while you are slowing down the rate your team is being killed, you are also slowing down the speed at which your team kills the enemy. And if there isn't enough AMS on the rest of your team, all your efforts do bugger all, because your 4 AMS do not do enough. You might want to buy that new Assault that is to come out in March, one chassis comes with 4 AMS. Maybe it becomes more common to field AMS then. But right now, I personally have not found a good way to help my team survive.

I posted a fairly frustrated discussion about this about 10 days or so ago... There is only so much you can do with your one Mech.

***EDIT: Sorry, missed one more question I could answer: Yes, the damage buff from skills stacks with ROF quirks. You apply your improved damage even quicker. AMS starts to fire at maximum range. For the rest, sorry, don't have that information.***

Edited by Darakor Stormwind, 30 December 2018 - 10:02 AM.

[Viagra Rage]

KassimBaba, on 30 December 2018 - 07:43 AM, said:

I've recently went back to missile eating fun for a while with regards to the mechanism behind AMS / LAMS, and some of the statistics displayed in the mechlab coupled with the quirks behind them - I tried searching online but can't seem to find a clear answer, so wanted to ask around:

AMS ROF Quirks - Assuming it applies for both AMS and LAMS - does this mean LAMS shoots more and thus heats up more as well? Or does it follow its stats heat?

AMS Damage - Assuming that it applies to both AMS and LAMS, this would be amplified by any ROF quirk?

AMS Range - Is damage constant at all range, or falls off from effective to max? At what range does AMS attempt to fire? Max range or effective? If so, is it spending more ammo/heat to kill a missile at max range?

Projectile Speed - ??? I thought AMS fire is technically instant, so this should be irrelevant?

Also random question, does each AMS target a different missile or all target one for faster killing? Possible scenario is SRMs when each AMS doesn't have enough time to shoot down within the travel time, but four to one theoretically should.

Currently planning to work on my ultimate missile eating bot.. it seems that Nova's triple AMS with 30% ROF (correct me if im wrong - 3 X 1.3 = 3.9 AMS ROF effective) + guns is a better deal than PIRs quad ams (and nearly no guns) and no quirks.

I run both the pir-a with 2 ams/2 l-ams and the nva-s. I have shot down 1898 missiles with the pir and average 1600 or so a game if there is heavy lrm use. The most I have shot down with the nova is 1640. Based on my experience, the pir has the edge if the goal is anti lrm. However, the nova has the edge in tonnage and damage done. As far as srms, I saw a video which showed triple ams 100% effective outside 250 meters or so.

[Viagra Rage]

Darakor Stormwind, on 30 December 2018 - 09:54 AM, said:

Well, I did some research into AMS during Lurmaggeddon in the summer, but I am going from memory...

ROF is just doing the same thing Cooldown does for normal weapons. It allows you to fire quicker, ie use up more ammo during the same time frame. So you do not do more damage, you just fire faster. I do not think anybody ever bothered to check whether this causes more heat on LAMS, because at the time LAMS was considered to be completely non-viable.

What I do remember is that 9 AMS missiles shoot down 1 enemy missile, before skills. So should be 6 missiles with skills. In ordinary testing (during games), 1 ton of AMS ammo (2200 shots) with skills should take out anything between 300 and 350 missiles.

I remember reading somewhere that it was doing less damage on the longer part of their range, but I think there was enough confusion about the statement that I would put it down as "not sure".

I have been randomly trolling LRMers with an Anti LRM Crab 27 with 13200 shots of AMS ammo, Kitfoxes with 5 tons of ammo, Nova's with 5 tons of ammo, 2 AMS and 1 LAMS, and several other combinations.

The problem with that approach is that too many of the missiles come through your anti-missile screen to catch enough of them. Best match I ever had was shooting down a little over 1600 missiles with my Nova. And then I died and we lost the game. My Crab never survived long enough to shoot more than ca. 6500 ammo. The Kitfox did slightly better, because of the ECM.

The problem is that you spend a lot of viability of your build to try and cancel out missiles. This ends with your personal damage contribution suffering... So while you are slowing down the rate your team is being killed, you are also slowing down the speed at which your team kills the enemy. And if there isn't enough AMS on the rest of your team, all your efforts do bugger all, because your 4 AMS do not do enough. You might want to buy that new Assault that is to come out in March, one chassis comes with 4 AMS. Maybe it becomes more common to field AMS then. But right now, I personally have not found a good way to help my team survive.

I posted a fairly frustrated discussion about this about 10 days or so ago... There is only so much you can do with your one Mech.

***EDIT: Sorry, missed one more question I could answer: Yes, the damage buff from skills stacks with ROF quirks. You apply your improved damage even quicker. AMS starts to fire at maximum range. For the rest, sorry, don't have that information.***

You could argue that for each missile shot down you are increasing the survivability of your team. If the opponent is relying on lrms to do damage, you have pretty much shut down/seriously degraded the damage potential of a heavy/assault lrm boat with a light/medium. The damage put out by the heavies/assaults you are keeping alive is, in most cases, greater than the damage an individual light/medium can put out. Not a bad trade.

[Phoenix 72]

Viagra Rage, on 30 December 2018 - 11:42 AM, said:

You could argue that for each missile shot down you are increasing the survivability of your team. If the opponent is relying on lrms to do damage, you have pretty much shut down/seriously degraded the damage potential of a heavy/assault lrm boat with a light/medium. The damage put out by the heavies/assaults you are keeping alive is, in most cases, greater than the damage an individual light/medium can put out. Not a bad trade.

I think you are still in T5, right? Maybe it works there, because people are really timid in that Tier. Maybe. But I doubt it.

Here a quote from a guy from my whine thread. Ash is in the top 100 players ever and one of the best players to post on this board regularly:

justcallme A S H, on 20 December 2018 - 03:55 AM, said:

Don't even waste time playing a AMS boat. LRM DPS is too high even for a tri-AMS Nova. I can kill a tri-AMS Nova with LRM80 in 3-4 volleys no worries.

Feel free to read the whole discussion here:

https://mwomercs.com...s-and-12-hours/

[Novakaine]

[Viagra Rage]

Darakor Stormwind, on 30 December 2018 - 11:53 AM, said:

I think you are still in T5, right? Maybe it works there, because people are really timid in that Tier. Maybe. But I doubt it.

Here a quote from a guy from my whine thread. Ash is in the top 100 players ever and one of the best players to post on this board regularly:



Feel free to read the whole discussion here:

https://mwomercs.com...s-and-12-hours/

That ignores that the ams boat is not playing a support role. If I have removed 1600 or more missiles from the map, I have prevented ,at a minimum, 1000 or more damage to the assaults or heavies I am supporting with a light mech. I am severely reducing the firepower of that 80 tube assault without trying to go head to head with it as your quote suggests.

[Lykaon]

Darakor Stormwind, on 30 December 2018 - 09:54 AM, said:

The problem is that you spend a lot of viability of your build to try and cancel out missiles. This ends with your personal damage contribution suffering... So while you are slowing down the rate your team is being killed, you are also slowing down the speed at which your team kills the enemy. And if there isn't enough AMS on the rest of your team, all your efforts do bugger all, because your 4 AMS do not do enough. You might want to buy that new Assault that is to come out in March, one chassis comes with 4 AMS. Maybe it becomes more common to field AMS then. But right now, I personally have not found a good way to help my team survive.

I think perhaps you may be utilizing a failing strategy in an attempt to just negate missiles via a passive counter measure.
I have found that just having a handful of AMS backed up with a couple of ECM is enough passive counters to LRMs to allow an active strategy the ability to succeed.

The simple version...

Don't expect that you can solve the LRM problem in the mechlab by packing on as much AMS with excessive ammo. The real success comes from an aggressive push against the LRM carrier(s) with the AMS and ECM reducing the effectiveness of the LRM while you close the distance.

[NRP]

Generally, its better to have all mechs on a team able to output max damage. At least the Nova S can bring 6 ERMLs with decent heat efficiency. Still a fragile mech though.

[Phoenix 72]

Viagra Rage, on 30 December 2018 - 01:05 PM, said:

That ignores that the ams boat is not playing a support role. If I have removed 1600 or more missiles from the map, I have prevented ,at a minimum, 1000 or more damage to the assaults or heavies I am supporting with a light mech. I am severely reducing the firepower of that 80 tube assault without trying to go head to head with it as your quote suggests.

Back when I did my research during the summer, I talked to some of the most prolific lurmers active at the time. Their accuracy is about 30%. So about 30% of their missiles hit, the rest peppers the landscape, gets avoided, etc. So what you have prevented is about 480 damage.

That is nothing to sneeze at. But, that damage is spread all over the Mech in question. So how much of it is considered lethal is open to interpretation. I was told that a properly skilled Atlas that is rolling damage exceedingly well can take over 1300 damage to put down.

That's why I mentioned the ECM of the Kitfox being more useful. It essentially cuts off the ability to target the mechs on your side, which is much more powerful than the AMS alone.

***EDIT: Something else you forgot in your discussion. You do not shoot down every single missile out of that 80 missile volley. You only get some of them. How large a number? No idea. But from everything I am told by people who are much better pilots than either of us two, not enough to put a serious dent into the damage taken. You are slowing things down, not preventing it.***

Edited by Darakor Stormwind, 30 December 2018 - 02:10 PM.

[Mister Maf]

Something that I think the anti-AMS parties in this discussion are missing is just how violently AMS counters clan ATMs. Just a pair of AMS puts a big dent into your average ATM volley; a 3xAMS Kit Fox or a group of players that each budgeted the whopping 1.5 tons for their own individual AMS virtually neutralizes most ATM mechs. The argument that this bites into your capacity to kill in a meaningful way seems exaggerated in this thread. Sure it hurts on many lights and mediums and they can get a pass, but many mediums and most heavies and assaults can find the tonnage somewhere if they really tried. My 2xAMS Cyclops is an extremely powerful brawling mech in its own right despite having allocated 3 of 90 tons for AMS, and I have more lights with AMS than without.

Edited by Mister Maf, 30 December 2018 - 02:56 PM.

[Prototelis]

Mister Maf, on 30 December 2018 - 02:55 PM, said:

Something that I think the anti-AMS parties in this discussion are missing is just how violently AMS counters clan ATMs. Just a pair of AMS puts a big dent into your average ATM volley; a 3xAMS Kit Fox or a group of players that each budgeted the whopping 1.5 tons for their own individual AMS virtually neutralizes most ATM mechs. The argument that this bites into your capacity to kill in a meaningful way seems exaggerated in this thread. Sure it hurts on many lights and mediums and they can get a pass, but many mediums and most heavies and assaults can find the tonnage somewhere if they really tried. My 2xAMS Cyclops is an extremely powerful brawling mech in its own right despite having allocated 3 of 90 tons for AMS, and I have more lights with AMS than without.

[Viagra Rage]

Darakor Stormwind, on 30 December 2018 - 02:00 PM, said:

Back when I did my research during the summer, I talked to some of the most prolific lurmers active at the time. Their accuracy is about 30%. So about 30% of their missiles hit, the rest peppers the landscape, gets avoided, etc. So what you have prevented is about 480 damage.

That is nothing to sneeze at. But, that damage is spread all over the Mech in question. So how much of it is considered lethal is open to interpretation. I was told that a properly skilled Atlas that is rolling damage exceedingly well can take over 1300 damage to put down.

That's why I mentioned the ECM of the Kitfox being more useful. It essentially cuts off the ability to target the mechs on your side, which is much more powerful than the AMS alone.

***EDIT: Something else you forgot in your discussion. You do not shoot down every single missile out of that 80 missile volley. You only get some of them. How large a number? No idea. But from everything I am told by people who are much better pilots than either of us two, not enough to put a serious dent into the damage taken. You are slowing things down, not preventing it.***

I am not suggesting passive play. I account for plenty of killing blows and kmdd. My point is that when positioned and played properly, ams mechs bring more to the table in the current missile heavy environment than is being suggested. You can play a support role pretty dang aggressively in watching the flow and positioning alone.

Edited by Viagra Rage, 30 December 2018 - 03:35 PM.

[Yiryi-Sa]

Viagra Rage, on 30 December 2018 - 03:34 PM, said:

I account for plenty of killing blows and kmdd. My point is that when positioned and played properly, ams mechs bring more to the table in the current missile heavy environment than is being suggested. You can play a support role pretty dang aggressively in watching the flow and positioning alone.

This. I play Vindicators, Grasshoppers, Javelins, Locusts, Wolfhounds with dual Laser AMS and do plenty of kills or KMDDs. These builds are offensively weapon heat intensive and they run XLs, so they're extremely risky. The key is also setting up the skill tree nodes to reflect their usefulness; range and AMS overload nodes, I find, have been the largest beneficiary towards improving AMS in the field; velocity also has a benefit, even to Laser AMS. I find it hard to believe that players are so ready to disregard AMS.

[VonBruinwald]

Darakor Stormwind, on 30 December 2018 - 02:00 PM, said:

Something else you forgot in your discussion. You do not shoot down every single missile out of that 80 missile volley. You only get some of them. How large a number? No idea. But from everything I am told by people who are much better pilots than either of us two, not enough to put a serious dent into the damage taken. You are slowing things down, not preventing it.

That's a good thing. Arguing AMS only puts a dent in LRMs is like arguing LRM's only do spread damage. Sure, on paper it make look poor but we've all seen an LRM boat lock down an enemies positioning and similarly we've seen AMS prevent what would otherwise be lethal damage. Both of which can turn the tide.

Those "better" pilots typically shun AMS not because its ineffective but rather to boost their personal damage scores with more weapons/armour. With good positioning you can protect yourself from lurms relatively easily but it's a team game. Not a lot of credit is given to the light who skirts across open ground to provide AMS support to a caught out assault, only to the assault who turned the battle as a result of that light's actions.

AMS works best when protecting others, position yourself ~100m in front of the guy getting lurmed and your AMS will be twice as effective. If you're only looking out for yourself, ditch the AMS and go stand behind a rock.

[Phoenix 72]

Viagra Rage, on 30 December 2018 - 03:34 PM, said:

I am not suggesting passive play. I account for plenty of killing blows and kmdd.

If you say so. Because your Jarl's List stats sure do not show it. IIRC, 7 missiles shot down should yield one match score. So your 1600 missiles shot down per match should bring you ca. 225 MS. From AMS alone. Which your stats reflect in no way. So I can only conclude you do not actually play with AMS all that often. Or that it is not all that useful all that often.

Moving on to my next point...

Mister Maf, on 30 December 2018 - 02:55 PM, said:

Something that I think the anti-AMS parties in this discussion are missing is just how violently AMS counters clan ATMs. Just a pair of AMS puts a big dent into your average ATM volley;

They are also extremely powerful against SRM and SSRM. However, you always have AMS on that Mech and you will have it on you, whether you encounter missile boats or not. You can end up playing on Polar and getting your AMS' worth. But you may as well end up on Solaris City and have wasted 3 tons. ***EDIT: That ammo of yours will run out pretty quickly under heavy lurming. While lurm boats tend to bring 6-10 tons worth of ammo.*** You also - ideally - need to be between the enemy and your team to make the most of the firing rate. This is pretty suicidal on a number of maps. Your team is also rarely deathballs tighly enough to cover enough of them. You will ever only be able to protect parts of your team.

And I would like to re-iterate. I am not an "anti-AMS party". I do bring AMS on a number of my Mechs. But since I am often the only one, the effects are not nearly as strong as people advocate on this thread. I spent the time and did research on AMS. Also:

Weapon Matches Fired Hit Accuracy Time Equip. Damage

AMS 551 24,148 0 0.00% 2 days 16:59:48 0
LASER AMS 93 1,805 0 0.00% 11:57:20 0
C-AMS 179 17,030 0 0.00% 22:03:39 0
C-LASER AMS 28 1,317 0 0.00% 03:40:32 0

I am just saying: As an Anti Missile boat, the Kitfox is superior to the Nova, because the ECM does bring more to the table than the ROF buff.

VonBruinwald, on 30 December 2018 - 07:12 PM, said:

Those "better" pilots typically shun AMS not because its ineffective but rather to boost their personal damage scores with more weapons/armour. With good positioning you can protect yourself from lurms relatively easily but it's a team game. Not a lot of credit is given to the light who skirts across open ground to provide AMS support to a caught out assault, only to the assault who turned the battle as a result of that light's actions.

I do not consider myself a better pilot in this scenario. But the problem is that you bringing AMS only does so much. It kinda reminds me of being the only one immune during a zombie apocalypse. It only does so much. "Solving" the problem of AMS "weakness" would already be done if everybody was bringing 1 AMS. Instead of one person trying to cram as much as possible on their Mech. But you cannot affect what other people bring in their builds. And the majority of people do not bring AMS in any shape or form.

Edited by Darakor Stormwind, 30 December 2018 - 10:38 PM.