79 replies to this topic

[w0qj]

~Skills
a) Absolutely! Running around in your mech and still successfully locking onto target is a *skill*!
Just to be clear, there are no skill points and no skill tree that can help in acquiring your lock faster.

~BAP (Beagle Active Probe): It sure helps you to lock onto enemy target, even when enemy ECM tries to jam in your area!

~Targeting Computer: It does not help locking onto target, as far as I'm aware.
(And neither does the IS Command Console for that matter).

Dauntless Blint, on 09 June 2021 - 04:26 PM, said:

More people need to invest in their skills and BAP and Targeting Computers.

[Matthew Ace]

Personally, I would like to see 1 or both.of these tried out:

(1) Clan Streaks gets streamfired, but gets their 2 damage per missile back. The faster cooldown is kept. Spheroids keep the burst fite.

(2) Decouple locking-on from the other missiles - instead, in a similar manner to RACs, hold crosshair with LOS on target (yes, you need to press "R") to charge up. This simulates the missile system targeting. If you lose LOS or your crosshair strays away from targeted enemy, this resets. However, make them fire-and-forget, and weighs more on a particular location where your crosshair is when the missiles are fired. If crosshair is within targeting box but not on the mech itself, it'll default to distributing across the different locations as we have it now. If this is a net nerf, this also grants allowance for buffing the weapon in some other ways.

[Xeno Phalcon]

Dumbfire option seems to be the simplest and easiest option IMO but would still require one of the code monkeys to come out of hiding and not just someone adjusting stats.

[Remover of Obstacles]

Long lock time is a problem. (Most things that are mobile enough to use streaks don't have armor to survive long enough to be helpful to their team, ie face time).

The lock on "box" (circle) got shrunk under Russ's regime. It is now smaller than the red target box. This is insanely counterintuitive for new pilots. "But I had my reticle in the box! Why the BLEEP, BLEEP, BLEEP, did I lose lock?!?!?!"

Radar Derp being instant lock loss is a problem. Max Radar Derp needs to come down to a 80% to 90% reduction.

Having a larger lock box may improve issues with pencil thin terrain features breaking lock. Not sure how that interacts if you move the reticle to other side of tower antenna/street lamp/small city statute of children holding a ball. Adding a quarter to half second delay to Radar Derp activating may help fix this non-sensical issue.

[Khobai]

Xeno Phalcon, on 10 June 2021 - 03:03 AM, said:

Dumbfire option seems to be the simplest and easiest option IMO but would still require one of the code monkeys to come out of hiding and not just someone adjusting stats.

it literally is just adjusting a stat.

changing a 1 to a 0 would let streaks fire without a lock

"needlock": 1,

just change that bit to a 0.

they should just try that out and see if it makes the weapon a little more viable.

Edited by Khobai, 10 June 2021 - 08:56 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

w0qj, on 09 June 2021 - 03:25 AM, said:

That was exactly my personal suggestion, just make Streak lock-on the same speed as Artemis.
ie: faster locks!

Artemis does not give you faster lock time. Only a spread reduction.

Storming Angel, on 09 June 2021 - 09:35 AM, said:

Yeah i don't use them due to the large amount of ECM and the long lock times too be fair despite being close ranged locking weapons.

TAG and BAP/CAP are mandatory and resolve this issue.

Additionally UAVs are a really handy investment as well.

[Khobai]

the way BAP and ECM interact is stupid though.

BAP should increase the range you can detect ECM mechs at.

not just counter ECM at extreme short range

even if you have bap, ecm halving the effective range of streaks (or 1/3rd the range in the case of clan streaks) does not help streaks. ecm is a big part of the reason why streaks suck.


my understanding is the sensor skill does increase the range you can detect ECM mechs or at least it did back when it was a module. BAP also increases sensor range so it should logically work the same way and increase the range you can detect ecm mechs.


BAP should also detect all mechs within 120 meters regardless of LoS. Thats the main thing it did in battletech that was useful. Streaks would also be more useful if you could use BAP to hold locks on mechs that run around corners and pre-lockon mechs on the other side of buildings and terrain.

Edited by Khobai, 11 June 2021 - 02:09 AM.

[Dogstar]

justcallme A S H, on 10 June 2021 - 09:02 PM, said:

TAG and BAP/CAP are mandatory and resolve this issue.

Additionally UAVs are a really handy investment as well.

The thing is that streaks are already heavy so to add another ton or two or a bunch of consumables in order to support them turns them into something really not worth taking - which is what almost everybody does, they never use streaks.

Streaks are one of the very few areas where the Cauldron has not made an improvement to the weapons (please improve flamers too!), with the avowed intent of making all weapons fun please, ASH, take this suggestion on board and see what can be done - lock-on time/arc combined with excessive facetimes are the problem and need to be improved (i.e. time decreased and arc widened) ASAP

Edited by Dogstar, 11 June 2021 - 12:52 AM.

[Khobai]

You shouldnt have to tag a light in order to streak it anyway. Thats counterintuitive. If you have the reflexes to continuously hold a tag on a light then you probably dont need to be using streaks in the first place.

I agree that BAP isnt really worth its tonnage either. I mean youre forced to take it for streaks but it still feels bad that youre being forced to take it. BAP should do more to penetrate ECM/stealth armor. Streaks being limited to 120m because of ECM/stealth armor also feels bad. Stealth armor is still very much a problem for streaks too.

BAP should also appear on the weapons list so you know what mechs have BAP or not.

A lot of this stuff is information warfare stuff that shouldve been addressed a long time ago.

Edited by Khobai, 11 June 2021 - 01:35 AM.

[Horseman]

Khobai, on 10 June 2021 - 10:13 PM, said:

the way BAP and ECM interact is stupid though. BAP should increase the range you can detect ECM mechs at. not just counter ECM at extreme short range (120m) even if you have bap, ecm halving the effective range of streaks (or 1/3rd the range in the case of clan streaks) does not help streaks. ecm is a big part of the reason why streaks suck. my understanding is the sensor skill does increase the range you can detect ECM mechs or at least it did back when it was a module. BAP also increases sensor range so it should logically work the same way and increase the range you can detect ecm mechs.

It does, by an effective 60m

[Khobai]

Horseman, on 11 June 2021 - 01:41 AM, said:

It does, by an effective 60m

So if you have max sensor skills you can target an ECMd mech at what 270m?

but having BAP doesnt increase your ecm detection range any further and it really should.

If you have both full sensors skills and BAP it should increase the range you can detect ecm from 200m to 200m * 1.35 * 1.25 or 338m

anything else that increases your sensor range should also apply to the range you can detect ecm at. including command consoles and targeting computers.

it seems like BAP should also have its own skill nodes in the sensor tree like ECM does to help boost its effectiveness even more. ECM is still absurdly powerful for how little it weighs.

Edited by Khobai, 11 June 2021 - 03:56 AM.

[Horseman]

Khobai, on 11 June 2021 - 03:35 AM, said:

So if you have max sensor skills you can target an ECMd mech at what 270m?

If I remember the numbers right:
Default sensor range - 800m
+Sensor Range from BAP - 250m

+Sensor Range from skill tree - 280m

Total 1330m, against maxed ECM 332.5m.

Note that I'm not sure how BAP and +Sensor Range skills stack. Opted for flat numeric values, if the Skill Tree is multiplicative with BAP then:

+ Sensor Range from BAP - 337.5m
Total 1417.5m, against maxed ECM 354.375m

but having BAP doesnt increase that any further and it really should.

If you have both full sensors skills and BAP it should increase the range you can detect ecm from 200m to 200m * 1.35 * 1.25 or 338m

Quote

anything else that increases your sensor range should also apply to the range you can detect ecm at. including command consoles and targeting computers.

It does. ECM cuts the effective sensor range against its' user (and any mechs from his side in the bubble) by 75%.
Everything that increases sensor range increases the range at which you can detect ECM. In TCs and CCs it's just not worth the tonnage investment.

[The Basilisk]

Like with all lock on weapons you need to invest heavyly into secondary equipment and you need to invest lots of skillpoints into the sensor tree.

Active Probes directly and indirectly counter ECM (hardcounter by neutralizing one ecm within range and softcounter any other ECM by increasing your sensor range)
Also your sensor range has an effect on your lock on time, but i can not quantify it.
Therefor any device you are carrying that increases your sensor range will also help you using lock on weapons.
Having 360° target retention will also help you if you have issues with fast targets leaving your primary field of view. If you do not have it, Radarderp will kick in the moment the target leaves your FOW.
If you got 360° Target retention this is not the case, instead the target will need to get something beteen him and you to break LOS.

So...yes there are lots of things making lock on weapons meh...but you also can do a sh..load of things that drasticaly increase their performance.

I would not know how to balance that without getting it insta broken or completely overpowered.

[Khobai]

i just think the x2 lockon speed from ecm is really oppressive for streaks now. especially if the lockon time isnt being reduced any.

[East Indy]

Dogstar, on 11 June 2021 - 12:51 AM, said:

The thing is that streaks are already heavy so to add another ton or two or a bunch of consumables in order to support them turns them into something really not worth taking - which is what almost everybody does, they never use streaks.

While I think the Inner Sphere nerf was a solution in search of an actual problem: for the performance that Streaks put up even with the higher cooldown, a Beagle isn't unreasonable and if you're in for a penny, TAG isn't either.

[BarHaid]

I really like the decreased lock-on time with decreasing range idea. Double plus one!

[1453 R]

Obviously this follow-up notion is no longer a Cauldron proposal, but...

A two-stage lock-on system could be of benefit. The problem is that the game uses the same lock-on mechanic for all guided weapons, which means that Streaks, ATMs, and LRMs all have the exact same mechanics. This is clearly Un Good.

What if, instead, we had a two-stage lock? A 'Direct-Fire' lock, quickly gained and just as quickly lost, that Streaks and ATMs use. Say, the east and west quadrants of the lock reticle solidify for this quick-and-dirty Direct Lock. For a full lock-on for indirect fire? The second stage of the lock kicks on, the north and south quadrants of the reticle solidify, and then you can fire indirectly. Not only does this allow for direct-fire lock missiles to function differently as needed, it provides another lever to tune indirect fire if needed in the future.

Again, not a Cauldron proposal at this point. If lock times can't be XML adjusted without also doing ATMs/LRMs, then oh well. But hey. Worth a shot for the far-flung future, mebbe?

[LordNothing]

tldr: just do instant locks at ranges < 120m. see below for entire chain of reasoning.

almost all other mechwarrior games have a different lockon mechanic for streaks than for lrms. one that's either instant (like the red crosshair mechanic that mw2 had) or a significantly shorter lock time than what mwo has. pgi likes a one size fits all solution where all missiles use the same locking mechanic. the recent lerm changes that use range as a factor in lock time, among other things, seems to indicate that there is a float curve involved that describes lock time vs range. i think this is modified by other attributes, like narc/tag status, artemis, targeting computers, or if there is los (and im not sure about all of those), but im going to ignore those for now. im only going to consider solutions that modify that curve itself. im not going to consider things like a second lock mechanic (like what other mw games have had), or solutions that modify the lock mechanic based on what weapons are installed, so you cant buff your lerm/atm lock times by mixing them with streaks.

one idea is to make the locktimes instant at < streak range. this would come with unpleasant side effects as the same mechanic is used on all missile systems. while lerms aren't much of a concern here, as a lot of lermers use the range, atms for example might benefit a wee bit too much from such a thing. good thing they were recently nerfed into oblivion. the real problem is on the clan side where streaks have a 360m range. so that significantly buffs atm and lrm lock time when used at mid to short ranges. this is less of a problem on the is side as streaks can only go 270m. still this would enable is lermers to ride the 90 meter gap between lerm min range and the non-instant lock time range which players can ride for glory and profit. but either way it is a direct buff to other locking missile systems. those systems would have to be similarly nerfed to compensate, perhaps with damage falloff in that bracket.

a modification of the previous plan would only allow instant locks to streaks at a portion of the streak max range. sarna puts the medium range for streaks at 6 is, 8 clan, in hexes, and assuming 30m per hex, that puts the range at 180 is, 240 clan. this eliminates any lrm lock time advantage on the is side, but the clan still have an accelerated lock time for atms in the high damage bracket, and lrms. using the short range instead would put the instant lock threshold at 120m clan, 90m is. which means instant lock happens inside atm min range eliminating the biggest issue with this implementation. there is still some 60m of overlap with lrms, but damage is ramped down at that range anyway and is not so much of a glaring issue. there is no tactical advantage to having insti-lock with partial damage lrms other than last second acts of desperation.

problem here is that the is now have a really short insti-lock range. however you could use different curves for different tech bases (this might pose implementation constraints). since is have shorter range streaks, we can use the medium range for the insti-lock bracket to give the is version a lock time advantage greater than clan. in this case lock time is instant for is at 180m, and 120m for clans. it might just be a lot easier to use the 120m as a global instant lock range in both tech bases, that is simple and to the point.

[Khobai]

1453 R, on 11 June 2021 - 01:01 PM, said:

Obviously this follow-up notion is no longer a Cauldron proposal, but...

A two-stage lock-on system could be of benefit. The problem is that the game uses the same lock-on mechanic for all guided weapons, which means that Streaks, ATMs, and LRMs all have the exact same mechanics. This is clearly Un Good.

you already get a direct fire lockon bonus. I believe lockon is 20% faster if you have direct LoS.

the speed you lockon is also apparently affected by your max sensor range divided by the distance to the target which is why you need to take BAP.

but even with all those things it takes forever to lockon especially against a mech protected by ECM. it also might be a simple matter of needing to decrease the lockon speed penalty of ecm from 50% to 25% and see if that helps.

streaks started having problems when they got rid of the artemis lockon bonus. And now theyve dunked the damage and buffed ams so theyre entirely useless.

decrease lockon time, buff damage per missile, and increase streak missile health to get through ams better and I think streaks will be back to where they need to be. just dont buff them so much that they one shot lights. I think a good balance point would be where streak loadouts two-shot most lights and maybe three-shot some of the heavier 35 tonners.

Edited by Khobai, 12 June 2021 - 06:22 AM.

[Elizander]

Well there is obviously some bias against streaks or else they wouldn't be in this state. I'm getting the impression from what I've seen that they don't want streaks to be easy to use against light mechs, which is a reasonable concern.

The issue though is that streaks are pretty bad against larger targets due to the spread so it already has a built-in penalty without further nerfting lockon times or cooldowns. The way that they are designed, regardless of initial intent, is to fill that niche to make it easier to take out light mechs. If streaks can't do that, then they are more or less quite useless due to not having any battlefield role that they can effectively fulfill.

If good pilots can just use lasers to leg lights consistently, then I don't see why streaks can't be used in the same manner. An option to consider is reducing the ghost heat limit of streaks so that they can only fire 12 to 18 missiles maximum per volley. The more you lower the limit, the wider the lock on area and the lower the CD should be to make the weapon fun to use. If the limit is 2x SSRM6 then it should be allowed to have a decent area lock and standard CD or even lower. This turns it to be a DPS weapon, be friendly to mechs with less than 3 missile hard points and not instantly burst down light mechs. So if the limit is 12, then 2x SSRM6, 3x SSRM4 or 6x SSRM2 can be used. Adjustments to heat, resistance to AMS and CD can be used to make these meaningful choices to make. SSRM6 can fire the fastest, but be the weakest to AMS. SSRM4 can be the middle ground and SSRM2 can fire slower, but be the most resistant to AMS or something along those lines.

I can't shake the feeling that "We don't want potato scrubs having an easy time using streaks on our light mechs" is behind these changes. I'm not saying that's the case, but if so, then that has to be dropped and have streaks be treated equally like other weapon systems.

Edited by Elizander, 12 June 2021 - 09:41 PM.