0
The6thMessenger, on 16 January 2019 - 05:44 PM, said:
Spoiler
For consideration, above is my first thought on the PTS 1.0. And the changes overall, now seems a bit okay, but I have certain things to add.
LOS lock-time could be improved further, into 25% to 33.33% bonus. But the proper approach would have been that TAG retained it's Lock-Speed boost and would work with the 20% default LOS boost to get it up to 33.33%, this is to give TAG better personal use which as it always had been a good LOS companion equipment for LRMs.
The TAG and NARC feeling like necessary for effective IDF is a good thing, but for it to be truly effective is for it to function as close to DF in terms of performance such as the spread. This gives dedicated spotters a bit more use. However TAG still needs to be improved by having a toggle switch, and invisible beam saved for Thermal and Night Vision.
I feel the Spread difference between DF and IDF use, but not so much on Clans mainly because a large part of spreading the damage is it's stream-fire than cone-of-fire. This also the same reason why I no longer take Artemis on Clan LRMs -- because they spread inevitably due to the stream. To put this into perspective, the 190m/s velocity with 0.5s delay/shot means it's about 0.2 to 0.95s worth of distance between the first and last shot, which is basically the entire beam is 38 to 180.5 meter across that could be spread around -- the Spread bonus would only modify the cone-of-fire but on top of that the volley is still stretched out up to 180 meters across regardless. And considering that, it's much more detrimental to chainfire LRMs, because it's spreading the entire Clan streams even more, as opposed of IS LRMs that spaces the shot at 0.5s in between.
For the IDF, I feel that the current spread at Live Version should have been the baseline for LRMs in IDF, and then the DF would have a better spread for that. The spread-bonus should also be active during TAG or NARC though, so that using TAG or NARC is an equivalent to being in DF.
The additional time to lock when you go behind cover seems to be a nice touch, it's a good incentive to keep people looking out. That being said, It would feel rather intrusive for poptarting with missiles, and would make it also a lot intrusive than before because people could easily destabilize locks by going behind cover. So it would best be done away.
One way to make DF more competitive with other DF weapons is having LRMs capable of tracking when fired, even if the lock is incomplete which can be later completed in mid-air with maximum tracking strength. This also comes at a bonus of somewhat exclusively balancing the streaks apart from ATMs and LRMs, because streaks would still be required locks before it can fire. The LRMs could stand longer locks this way.
The distinction between IDF and DF should be more pronounced at mid-range. The distinction of time-to-target becomes less pronounced the closer you are, similarly the lock time, thus it's less incentivising to use LOS when you are actually close, because the difference in time-to-target or lock becomes less and you're only presenting a large target in terms of trading and retaliation. What would have been a good approach is have either the distant-dependent lock-speed either working both at IDF and DF, or just at DF alone which would make IDF less dependent to distance which was the point of IDF.
So far the PTS 2.0 feels a nice touch, I have yet to use it on IDF because i'm not getting any drops. I can't get a handle on the distance-based lock-time penalty w/o TAG/NARC, so I cannot really comment on those.
Same case with the AMS changes, although with varying missile-health already in which missiles are less vulnerable to AMS the smaller their tube counts are, I see no use of ATM3s having completely faster volley-ROF from other ATMs.
However, there's still parts that are lacking:
There still should be a Lock-Cone improvement. One way to do it is to just add Lock-Cone buffs integrated on the Targetting-Computers, and have it larger by default. It's understandable to nerf the Locking mechanism for streaks, the problem is that you can't have it both ways; small Lock-Cone and long Lock-Time.
Clans having stream-fire should ACTIVELY change angle during the course of the stream, come on, it has to be fixed. IS launchers launch their missiles relatively instantly all at once, but Clan doesn't.
Edited by The6thMessenger, 10 February 2019 - 06:44 PM.
