23 replies to this topic

[Reposter]

Hi guys, just wondering why do Inner Sphere LRMs fire in a different manner than Clan LRMs?

How does it affect the way a MechWarrior uses them?

[Brauer]

It helps make up for how much heavier IS lrm launchers are and it makes IS lrms objectively superior to clan lrms tube for tube.

[Willard Phule]

For the same reason Clan AC's have that burst fire instead of a single slug. Back in the day when they first released the Clans, the explanation was that it was to "spread damage over time" as opposed to pinpoint damage...the theory being that you can still get some damage out of what would have been a complete miss with IS weapons.

It was a far bigger issue before they brought in ATMs with a lower trajectory, then applied that trajectory to LRMs with line of sight on the target.

[Nesutizale]

I actualy like the LRMs trajectory change.
As for ACs...still think that the normal Clan AC, while it shouldn't exist, should be the single slug version that the LBX-slug ammo should have been and use a single bullet. Damn make the thing heavier if you have to but I would like to play clanmechs with normal bullets over the burst fire.

[VonBruinwald]

Generally it is easier to deal with weapons dealing damage over time compared to front loaded damage. Playes have the opportunity to move into cover/twist the damage over multiple components before the full amount is dealt. This was used as the basis to balance clantech as their mechs typically deal more damage than their IS equivilents.

Also, due to the way AMS works its more effective vs clan lrms and typically eats through more missiles per volley. Whether its enough to balance 40 clan lrms vs 20 Is ones is very doubtful, but still, it closes the gap.

On a counter-point, if you're chainfiring lrms in troll mode clans are much better with the near constant screen shake and actually more effective vs ams once the stream makes contact as there's no delay to grant the ams an increase in range (ams attacks the closest missiles first)

[General Solo]

Its to balance the fact that clan lerms weigh half the weight.

[Willard Phule]

OZHomerOZ, on 06 September 2020 - 07:37 AM, said:

Its to balance the fact that clan lerms weigh half the weight.

True enough. Those of us that play Clans almost exclusively sometimes wish we could put a cloud of missiles on a target the way the IS does, and I'm sure they sometimes wish they could get the higher hit percentage stream fire gets. Still, there's something to be said about putting 80 missiles into a cloud for the weight the other guy gets 40 on.

[Brauer]

Willard Phule, on 06 September 2020 - 08:18 AM, said:

True enough. Those of us that play Clans almost exclusively sometimes wish we could put a cloud of missiles on a target the way the IS does, and I'm sure they sometimes wish they could get the higher hit percentage stream fire gets. Still, there's something to be said about putting 80 missiles into a cloud for the weight the other guy gets 40 on.

Stream fire doesn't give a higher hit percentage. It, if AMS is not a factor, it increases the chance that something will hit, but IS lrms should give more hits overall because the enemy has less of a chance to take cover and AMS has less of a chance to whittle the missiles down as they come in.

Edited by Brauer, 06 September 2020 - 08:47 AM.

[The pessimistic optimist]

In my experience IS LRM's work better over all in direct fire mode. Coming in big groups make it easier to fire a big fat wade of missiles at a target you can see then move in to cover if needed. If you are in LRM sweet spot they will have no time to move out of the way. Clan I think indirect is were clan lrm shine the number of tubes and damage you can dish out of a single target is stupid there armor gets shredded. If you can going to use direct fire missiles as clan you are much better off with ATMs

Edited by SirSmokes, 06 September 2020 - 10:07 AM.

[w0qj]

I've been playing a LOT of non-Meta and anti-MWO-lore LRM builds,
both for Inner Sphere (IS) [Fafnir LRM boat, Annihilator LRM boat] and Clans [Super Nova LRM boat, Blood ASP LRM boat], mostly on Assaults (!) for their massive a-LRM80 missile payloads.
(Hey, the Quick-Play group mode basically don't consider total team tonnage anymore, right?)

eg: IS ANH-MB with a-LRM80 (veeerrrry slow mech, btw, don't try this at home, folks!):
This can punch through the toughest AMS enemy groups, and enables you to directly target the COR-7A with 4xAMS, and actually soften the COR-7A enough for your team members to cut it down. Especially if you increase the missile velocity skill tree.

Compare this to Clan Assault LRM boats (tried Super Nova a-LRM80, Blood ASP a-LRM80),
the Clan a-LRM80 just is not effective, because:
a) Experienced players tend to run for cover, so in general the 2nd half of Clan streaming LRM is wasted.
b ) AMS (especially group of enemies' AMS) tend to greatly negate Clan LRM; few can reach target,
especially if COR-7A is the group AMS defense center-piece.

So at the end of 2 months of experimenting, my standard a-LRM layout as below:

1) IS: a-LRM60 (ie: 4xLRM15), for more missile ammo, and larger engine hence faster mech @ max 48 kph.
My Annihilator (failed experiment) with a-LRM80 was so slow @ 38kph that on Polar Highlands that never got to the fight (intercepted by lights NASCAR'ing me), or my teammates tried to cover me and split the team up, ending up losing both fights!!

2) Clan: ended up doing a-LRM30 (ie: 2xLRM15) + a-Streak12 (ie: 2x Streak6 with Artemis).

Reasons:
2a) Clan a-LRM30 used to harass (not hurt) enemies at long range, scare them with "Missile Warning", OR a-LRM30 used against soft targets with no AMS/ECM and no neighboring ally AMS defense (yes, I'm looking at you, Dire Wolf-UV).

2b) The Clan a-Streak12 is actually a better use instead of LRM. Artemis gives faster missile lock for Streaks, and much faster/lower trajectory so for 0m-300m it is much better than LRM.

2c) I admit that I have not yet mastered the Clan ATM9/ATM12 yet, despite their allure of smaller minimum arming range/distance. ATM runs much hotter than LRM, so my a-LRM30 + a-Streak12 worked much better than ATM for now.

3) I've even tried ECM a-LRM boats vs AMS a-LRM boats, but that's another story

ymmv

Edited by w0qj, 06 September 2020 - 02:26 PM.

[JediPanther]

A lrm 10 on a stealth rvn works fine.

[BackShot]

Oh a thread about lock ons ! its been so long since the last one !

Considering 3/4 of the player base rely only on that, i guess it makes sense that 3/4 of the posts are about that too.

[Willard Phule]

Brauer, on 06 September 2020 - 08:47 AM, said:

Stream fire doesn't give a higher hit percentage. It, if AMS is not a factor, it increases the chance that something will hit, but IS lrms should give more hits overall because the enemy has less of a chance to take cover and AMS has less of a chance to whittle the missiles down as they come in.

It does, kinda, with moving targets. With IS missiles, if you dodge the cloud, you dodge the cloud. With Clan missiles, they tend to follow you for a second until you reach cover. Personally, I think they should have made it selectable with each system as well as which trajectory to use. You know, instead of making it automatic.

[The pessimistic optimist]

w0qj, on 06 September 2020 - 01:52 PM, said:

I've been playing a LOT of non-Meta and anti-MWO-lore LRM builds,
both for Inner Sphere (IS) [Fafnir LRM boat, Annihilator LRM boat] and Clans [Super Nova LRM boat, Blood ASP LRM boat], mostly on Assaults (!) for their massive a-LRM80 missile payloads.
(Hey, the Quick-Play group mode basically don't consider total team tonnage anymore, right?)

eg: IS ANH-MB with a-LRM80 (veeerrrry slow mech, btw, don't try this at home, folks!):
This can punch through the toughest AMS enemy groups, and enables you to directly target the COR-7A with 4xAMS, and actually soften the COR-7A enough for your team members to cut it down. Especially if you increase the missile velocity skill tree.

Compare this to Clan Assault LRM boats (tried Super Nova a-LRM80, Blood ASP a-LRM80),
the Clan a-LRM80 just is not effective, because:
a) Experienced players tend to run for cover, so in general the 2nd half of Clan streaming LRM is wasted.
b ) AMS (especially group of enemies' AMS) tend to greatly negate Clan LRM; few can reach target,
especially if COR-7A is the group AMS defense center-piece.

So at the end of 2 months of experimenting, my standard a-LRM layout as below:

1) IS: a-LRM60 (ie: 4xLRM15), for more missile ammo, and larger engine hence faster mech @ max 48 kph.
My Annihilator (failed experiment) with a-LRM80 was so slow @ 38kph that on Polar Highlands that never got to the fight (intercepted by lights NASCAR'ing me), or my teammates tried to cover me and split the team up, ending up losing both fights!!

2) Clan: ended up doing a-LRM30 (ie: 2xLRM15) + a-Streak12 (ie: 2x Streak6 with Artemis).

Reasons:
2a) Clan a-LRM30 used to harass (not hurt) enemies at long range, scare them with "Missile Warning", OR a-LRM30 used against soft targets with no AMS/ECM and no neighboring ally AMS defense (yes, I'm looking at you, Dire Wolf-UV).

2b) The Clan a-Streak12 is actually a better use instead of LRM. Artemis gives faster missile lock for Streaks, and much faster/lower trajectory so for 0m-300m it is much better than LRM.

2c) I admit that I have not yet mastered the Clan ATM9/ATM12 yet, despite their allure of smaller minimum arming range/distance. ATM runs much hotter than LRM, so my a-LRM30 + a-Streak12 worked much better than ATM for now.

3) I've even tried ECM a-LRM boats vs AMS a-LRM boats, but that's another story

ymmv

That's one thing you can do much much better with clan LRMs medium mech LRM skirmishers. You can make a IS medium LRM skirmisher but it's not nearly as easy as making a good clan medium LRM skirmisher. IS 15s and 20s are just too heavy for there mediums to use with out going super slow

Edited by SirSmokes, 06 September 2020 - 03:00 PM.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

w0qj, on 06 September 2020 - 01:52 PM, said:

2b) The Clan a-Streak12 is actually a better use instead of LRM. Artemis gives faster missile lock for Streaks, and much faster/lower trajectory so for 0m-300m it is much better than LRM.

Streaks don't benefit from Artemis. They did, when Artemis sped up the lock on times, but that was removed when they reworked lock-on missiles, thus correcting an old exploit, because Artemis and Streaks never should work together at all.

[Warning incoming Humble Dexterer]

IS LRMs are harder to shoot down with AMS.

IS LRMs are more likely to get a kill, while Clan LRMs are more likely to get killstealed.

So you can get more kills with less LRMs on IS mechs.

[w0qj]

1. Noted that Artemis does not improve Streak-SSM at all now, and thanks to Aidan Crenshaw for the tip!

2. If you play LRM boat nowadays, you are expected to weaken enemies for your team; you rarely get to do the killing blow.
This is for IS LRM boats. The situation is even worse for Clan LRM boats.

For anyone playing LRM boat with expectations to kill "many" enemies in a single game (perhaps for PSR Tier rankings), this would be an exercise in frustration IMHO.

Warning incoming Humble Dexterer, on 07 September 2020 - 01:37 PM, said:

IS LRMs are harder to shoot down with AMS.

IS LRMs are more likely to get a kill, while Clan LRMs are more likely to get killstealed.

So you can get more kills with less LRMs on IS mechs.

Edited by w0qj, 07 September 2020 - 09:53 PM.

[ShiverMeRivets]

Per tube, yes, IS LRMs are better. However, clan LRMs are so much lighter, take less crit slots, and clan mechs usually have more hardpoints, that a clan medium can carry the same number of tubes as an IS assault. So clan LRMs compensate by bringing a lot more tubes than an IS equivalent tonnage mech.

In addition, clan LRMs do (reduced) damage under their minimum optimal range, while IS LRMs do 0 damage. This is a very significant difference that is often overlooked. You may do half damage but half of 80 is still 40 damage.

Edited by ShiverMeRivets, 07 September 2020 - 09:31 PM.

[Brauer]

ShiverMeRivets, on 07 September 2020 - 09:29 PM, said:

Per tube, yes, IS LRMs are better. However, clan LRMs are so much lighter, take less crit slots, and clan mechs usually have more hardpoints, that a clan medium can carry the same number of tubes as an IS assault. So clan LRMs compensate by bringing a lot more tubes than an IS equivalent tonnage mech.

In addition, clan LRMs do (reduced) damage under their minimum optimal range, while IS LRMs do 0 damage. This is a very significant difference that is often overlooked. You may do half damage but half of 80 is still 40 damage.

Clan lrms are not very useful within 180m, the miniscule damage they do within 180 is largely overlooked because it's pretty insignificant. Despite having more tubes clan mechs don't get the quirks for the best IS lrm boats, like the Fafnir-5E, AWS-8R, TBT-7M, and ANH-MB. Those quirks make a massive difference.

The main reason to take a clan lrms boat is if you want a fast lrm boat as otherwise ab IS mech is going to be better almost every time.

[Nesutizale]

Or you could take clan lrms and make a steady stream just to annoy people or to make a bait build.
I had one. It was fun. Pretend you are an LRM boat then great them with AC20