107 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

LordNothing, on 01 November 2021 - 07:44 PM, said:

the way streak homing works is a missile locks onto a random mech component. the torso sections are weighted slightly higher. this makes them less likely to leg lights but also allows you to focus damage to the torsos on larger mechs to make killing blows more likely. it doesnt spread randomly like dumbfire missiles do. the missile is pretty much guaranteed to hit unless something gets in the way. changing the weights would make them even stronger against larger mechs. thats not a bad thing, but id like to keep them as the go to anti-squirrel weapon. the accelerated lock time would help in that situation especially with the legs not being as likely to be targeted.

Why Streaks were anti-squirrel before is that not only they deal heavy damage, it's that they also have a large lock cone that makes it easy to get a lock in the first place. The somewhat broken locking is remedied by somewhat broken ECM cover.

[The6thMessenger]

ScaZz, on 02 November 2021 - 12:06 AM, said:

[redacted]

There's a few nitpicks I didn't like, but certainly they as a group did a LOT of good for the game, even did balance better than PGI did.

Edited by Ekson Valdez, 02 November 2021 - 05:16 AM.
quote clean-up

[AnAnachronismAlive]

ScaZz, on 02 November 2021 - 12:06 AM, said:

[redacted]

C'mon, lad ... while one does not necessarily has to agree on issues with the Cauldron and/or Ash all the time, denying their more than positive impact on MWOs current state is just delusive. Yes, there are still a lot of aspects in MWO that need adressing, but those ain't in the hands of the cauldron but in PGIs hands since it would require meaningful engineering time!

Furthermore streaks are a pita to balance in between a range of "light-delete-button" and "meaningful weapon system" - even more so without the ability to change / diversivy the current lock-on mechanics. So keep posting suggestions, but do not hold the Cauldron nor Ash responsible for short-comings that PGI caused.

Edited by Ekson Valdez, 02 November 2021 - 05:17 AM.
quote clean-up

[FupDup]

The6thMessenger, on 01 November 2021 - 06:40 PM, said:

I think that's what they did.

IS Streaks are still 2 damage per missile, but now that you mention it I just looked at MechDB and noticed Clan Streaks are indeed weaker per missile (but also having a slower fire rate than SRMs rather than faster).

I entirely forgot about that because of how little they get used.

[caravann]

Streak SRM4 been helpful at closing the deal against light mechs.

The tracking speed could be faster.

Inner sphere promoted the manual fired weapons, they have stealth armor.

Clan promoted the tracking missiles , they have counter ECM.

[justcallme A S H]

ScaZz, on 02 November 2021 - 12:06 AM, said:

[redacted]

The current population that has a baseline higher than the 2019/2020 very much refute that.

If you don't agree that is completely fine. Not everyone agrees with every single change - hell I don't, the Cauldron is about majority consensus.
You cannot however ignore the numbers which very clearly show that the majority do not share your opinion and that you are wrong.


I mean you failed to present a coherent case and all I did was suggest and prove better alternatives. Believe it or don't. Keep trying to run SSRMs on 100T mechs and wonder why they under perform.

FupDup, on 02 November 2021 - 02:50 AM, said:

IS Streaks are still 2 damage per missile, but now that you mention it I just looked at MechDB and noticed Clan Streaks are indeed weaker per missile (but also having a slower fire rate than SRMs rather than faster).

I entirely forgot about that because of how little they get used.

Yeah DMG was taken down, and then buffed up (half way between) with other changes over 4 patches.

As I said cSSRM has come up again in Cauldron discussion. No outcome as I recall yet. We have other things to work on right now that are a bit higher priority

Edited by Ekson Valdez, 02 November 2021 - 05:17 AM.
quote clean-up

[Pika]

Easy fix to S-SRMs right now is to just make TAGs cut through ECM without a time penalty. Done. That's it. If you're REALLY worried about this making a weapon viable again, put it behind a skill. Clan Streaks also need a buff.

That's all you need to do. Actually might make taking a TAG AND Streaks worth it. Why they don't work on ECM is beyond me considering the missiles are supposed to ride the beam from the TAG like an actual laser guided missile rather than using their own seeker-heads.

It reeks of lazy design tbh and one of the reasons I only crack out my Streak Mad Dog when I'm wanting to have actual fun and not just try-hard all day.

Also the "Higher priority" is some strange wording, Ash. A useless, broken weapon that performs worse than an entire factions counterpart and is basically unusable past T4 isn't a priority? What, are we still arguing about .2 of a second burn time on Clan Lasers?

A useless weapon IS a priority fix. It NEEDS addressing. With the proliferation of ECM across the game and them becoming readily available on almost every meta chassis, the game needs more hard counters to it to be honest. Making TAGs cut through faster is a very easy, very reliable fix, and gets three weapons back on the field (TAGs, Streaks and even LRMs.). Hell, we might even reward teamwork this way.

Edited by Pika, 02 November 2021 - 05:22 AM.

[Ch_R0me]

Well, despite all the flaws and nerfs...

Decided to take 6xS-SRM-6 Mad Dog with just TAG.

Results are below.





Teamwork pretty much allowed me to do so much dmg. Along with investing SP in Range (managed to get 410m).

[Pika]

Ch_R0me, on 02 November 2021 - 05:08 AM, said:

Well, despite all the flaws and nerfs...

Decided to take 6xS-SRM-6 Mad Dog with just TAG.

Results are below.

[Screenies]

Teamwork pretty much allowed me to do so much dmg. Along with investing SP in Range (managed to get 410m).

Nice when this happens. Rare that it happens once you teach T3+ but the inconsistency makes me wonder why I don't just stick to meta builds. I want to see all weapons viable at all levels of play and right now the entire missile category just hardly seems worth taking.

But grats on the good game!

[pbiggz]

Ch_R0me, on 02 November 2021 - 05:08 AM, said:

Well, despite all the flaws and nerfs...

Decided to take 6xS-SRM-6 Mad Dog with just TAG.

Results are below.





Teamwork pretty much allowed me to do so much dmg. Along with investing SP in Range (managed to get 410m).

Well done, an 800+ match is always a feelgood.

Meaning no disrespect, but T5 matches frequently feature players who cant or wont engage in counterplay. That's why we hear people saying simultaneously that lights with stealth armour are overpowered and underpowered. Same deal for LRMs.

You'll get T5 light pilots cursing at streak SRMs very existence while even mid tier players generally agree they're not worth the tonnage when you could get the same results for less weight if you just bothered to aim standard SRMs.

[Ch_R0me]

Pika, on 02 November 2021 - 05:13 AM, said:

Nice when this happens. Rare that it happens once you teach T3+ but the inconsistency makes me wonder why I don't just stick to meta builds. (...)

But grats on the good game!

Thanks

Pika, on 02 November 2021 - 05:13 AM, said:

I want to see all weapons viable at all levels of play and right now the entire missile category just hardly seems worth taking.

Pretty much this.

EDIT:

pbiggz, on 02 November 2021 - 05:24 AM, said:

Well done, an 800+ match is always a feelgood.

Meaning no disrespect, but T5 matches frequently feature players who cant or wont engage in counterplay. That's why we hear people saying simultaneously that lights with stealth armour are overpowered and underpowered. Same deal for LRMs.

I get it. I'm mostly stuck on T5, because in most of the matches I had, my team was unable, or didn't wanted to engage in counterplays. I've managed to live and counter LRM's, even to deal with masked lights (LPPC or ERPPPC in Clans, along with TAG in hands).

pbiggz, on 02 November 2021 - 05:24 AM, said:

You'll get T5 light pilots cursing at streak SRMs very existence while even mid tier players generally agree they're not worth the tonnage when you could get the same results for less weight if you just bothered to aim standard SRMs.

I pretty much use Streaks just in Clan Mechs, due to their superior range.

And I have a few SRM boats, incl. Dervish and Huntsman; along with 7xSRM6 Cyclops, where I'm just firing one after another like a "machine gun" for tracking compensation.

But to be honest, I think that lock-on time of the Streaks needs to be significatly shorter than LRM-s.

Regardless, I cannot deny their usefulness when I need to scare off nasty locusts, fleas or other piranhas, but something must be done to make them more viable for their extra (half)ton for integrated Targa-7 FCS.

Spoiler

Would say something about introducing Artemis V upgrade exclusive to the Clans, along with the Streak LRM's, but that's way beyond the point).

Edited by Ch_R0me, 02 November 2021 - 05:40 AM.

[RickySpanish]

The heat could be lower on them, because they're so unpredictable you should be able to at least maintain damage output. But against Lights and Mediums they're quite effective. Aiming for CT would just be dumb, they used to do that and it made them a little too effective.

[Curccu]

ScaZz, on 01 November 2021 - 05:52 PM, said:

Then I guess lights would have to use their brains for once and scout properly.

And any Streak user is not allowed to use brains to hide until his team spots a light and then ambush it? If that light hunter build on right chassis it's fast enough that light can't GTFO before it delivers alpha or two more, zero aiming needed and light is dead or very badly crippled at that point.

ScaZz, on 01 November 2021 - 06:26 PM, said:

Its their job to scout anyway, they might as well learn to do it properly.

Every mechs job in this game is eliminate opposite teams mechs.

Edited by Curccu, 02 November 2021 - 07:26 AM.

[GoodTry]

The only point to streaks is the guidance. Guidance is only really useful against mechs you can't easily hit otherwise. That means mechs that are small and fast. Since the rescale, the only small & fast mechs are some of the 20-25 tonners (Flea, Locust, Piranha, Commando).

You typically see 1-2 of those mechs on the other team per game or less, and it doesn't take that much damage to kill them, so it's no wonder the weapon feels underwhelming.

I don't think its possible to buff it for its current role without making it too strong. And its current role is pointless, because the small/fast lights are already countered by other things, particularly all the 40-50pt pinpoint alphas that have been floating around recently.

[pbiggz]

GoodTry, on 02 November 2021 - 08:50 AM, said:

The only point to streaks is the guidance. Guidance is only really useful against mechs you can't easily hit otherwise. That means mechs that are small and fast. Since the rescale, the only small & fast mechs are some of the 20-25 tonners (Flea, Locust, Piranha, Commando).

You typically see 1-2 of those mechs on the other team per game or less, and it doesn't take that much damage to kill them, so it's no wonder the weapon feels underwhelming.

I don't think its possible to buff it for its current role without making it too strong. And its current role is pointless, because the small/fast lights are already countered by other things, particularly all the 40-50pt pinpoint alphas that have been floating around recently.

It's a weapon system that really calls for a comprehensive rework. Given that's not likely, cauldron tuning is the best we can hope for. It won't ever really fix the problem but I appreciate the effort and wont fault them for the limitations they have to work within.

[caravann]

Pika, on 02 November 2021 - 05:05 AM, said:

Easy fix to S-SRMs right now is to just make TAGs cut through ECM without a time penalty. Done. That's it. If you're REALLY worried about this making a weapon viable again, put it behind a skill. Clan Streaks also need a buff.

That's all you need to do. Actually might make taking a TAG AND Streaks worth it. Why they don't work on ECM is beyond me considering the missiles are supposed to ride the beam from the TAG like an actual laser guided missile rather than using their own seeker-heads.

It reeks of lazy design tbh and one of the reasons I only crack out my Streak Mad Dog when I'm wanting to have actual fun and not just try-hard all day.

Also the "Higher priority" is some strange wording, Ash. A useless, broken weapon that performs worse than an entire factions counterpart and is basically unusable past T4 isn't a priority? What, are we still arguing about .2 of a second burn time on Clan Lasers?

A useless weapon IS a priority fix. It NEEDS addressing. With the proliferation of ECM across the game and them becoming readily available on almost every meta chassis, the game needs more hard counters to it to be honest. Making TAGs cut through faster is a very easy, very reliable fix, and gets three weapons back on the field (TAGs, Streaks and even LRMs.). Hell, we might even reward teamwork this way.

It has some thought because the TAG based missiles today are countered by ECM, they hack the missile before it reach the target. That's what military is able to do today. Sure logic say, Welp the missile can't be hacked because it is following the tag, the missile can be hacked BECAUSE it is following the tag. and the computer hack the missile before it reach the target.

what systems who are harder to crack are those based on visual. this is used on jetplanes where the missile is tracking the shape of the target. once the computer has made a phantom image the missiles are sent to seek the target. these are countered by visual blinding the missiles with flares.

[Pika]

caravann, on 02 November 2021 - 11:03 AM, said:

It has some thought because the TAG based missiles today are countered by ECM, they hack the missile before it reach the target. That's what military is able to do today. Sure logic say, Welp the missile can't be hacked because it is following the tag, the missile can be hacked BECAUSE it is following the tag. and the computer hack the missile before it reach the target.

what systems who are harder to crack are those based on visual. this is used on jetplanes where the missile is tracking the shape of the target. once the computer has made a phantom image the missiles are sent to seek the target. these are countered by visual blinding the missiles with flares.

This is very wrong. There are two primary missile types in use by western nations. Thermal and Laser\Radar guided. Ground based weapons are wire guided or dumb fire. There are also Electro-Optical missiles in use by some nations. In reality, ECM does not prevent a missile being fired, it simply prevents a lock. An AIM-120 can still be fired in BoreSight mode. And an AIM9 doesn't even need a lock. Both of these can find their own targets after the pilot has fired.

Thermal missiles like the AIM9 just follow a thermal image. The sky is cold. they look for hot dots and go toward it. The flare countermeasure does not blind it, it creates another heat source and attempts to get the missile to follow the wrong one. Most MANPADs (MAN Portal Air Defence) are thermal with very short effective ranges.

Radar guided missiles piggy-back off the firing aircraft's radar until they get within the NEZ and go PITBULL. However these missiles do not "see" at all. They use Red and Blue shifts to look for things coming toward or going away from themselves and track the "shifting" colour. They do not track a shape. This is why you can avoid a radar missile by "notching" that is, putting it off to your side (So you stop moving toward or away relative to it and blend in with the ground). Once a missile is PITBULL it works a lot like a thermal missile. At this point, the missile is VERY hard to avoid, if not impossible. This is how most SAM sites work and why Anti-Rad Missiles can castrate SAMs, you just shoot the radar station they need.

The missiles in the Battltech setting would be either Wire Guided with that pathetic range or radar guided. Being able to litterally push a button and turn into thermal would be the best way to run them in MWO as our 'mechs are very, very toasty.

Edited by Pika, 02 November 2021 - 11:27 AM.

[pbiggz]

Battletech missiles do not hold up to any kind of science fiction scrutiny. Don't hold them to that standard.

[1453 R]

The problem with Streak launchers is that the original BattleTech concept is fundamentally incompatible with a real-time game. The BT Streak launchers, essentially, rolled to hit before they were fired. If you would miss? The launcher detects the impending miss and doesn't expend ammo, saving it for hits. In BT, that's f@#$ing great. It means ammunition stretches much further and you can give a 'Mech fewer total reloads, both saving room for other equipment and partially mitigating the real risk of ammo kabooms.

In a real-time shooty game like MWO? A weapon that doesn't fire unless you're perfectly on target would be a disaster. Nobody would know why their missiles kept malfunctioning and not shooting when they told them to shoot, and the game would have to figure out how many missiles in a salvo are allowed to not impact the target before the shot is canceled. If the answer is 'none', the launcher would almost never fire save in the point-blankest of point-blank range. There's always at least a few warheads in an SRM shot that miss. Always.

The BT system is entirely, fundamentally incompatible with real-time mechWarrior games, so they've always fudged it by making Streaks lock-to-fire weapons. In MWO, the first game in the series where competitive balance mattered, lock-to-fire weapons are handled extremely f@#$ing poorly. It's why LRMs are such a problem, it's why ATMs are bastardized FrankenMissile abominations that are absolutely terrible at everything, and it's why Streaks are pants-on-head pointless. The game can't manage lock-to-fire weapons that feel fluid, fun, and worthwhile without utterly breaking things, which is ridiculous.

Frankly, the entire lock-on system needs to be ripped out and redone. I know what I'd experiment with, but my whimsies don't really matter. All I know is that the current lock-to-fire mechanic does not suit the weapon for spit, nor does it really suit the game. Streak missiles are supposed to be highly accurate, super-dependable close-quarters weapons. They are, currently, neither of those things. Regular SRMs are better in every conceivable case, and they should not be. This needs mechanical fixing. Not XML file tweaks, engineering-level work. XML patching can only do so much.

[D A T A]

Clan Streaks were very good before, and now they do more DPS and survive to AMS way much more, so in fact they are buffed....