17 replies to this topic

[Black Butterfly]

Just reading the Trebuchet announcement and wondered about this:


“Incoming Missiles; get out of there!”

“On it!”

He slams his throttle forward. Dodging into cover spotted previous, and slaps his power down. As his ’Mech hums itself to sleep, he listens to the dull ‘thud’ of exploding missiles above. Again slapping the power button, revving back up, and quickly moved into the open.


Does this mean that powering down causes incoming missiles to detonate when they lose their lock, or maybe I'm misinterpreting it? I think I read somewhere that the Dev's said they detonate at the limit of their range too.

As he got into cover, I wasn't sure if it meant that they were impacting on the terrain above him, but if this is the case why power down then restart immediately?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this guys

[100mile]

Hhmmmm...interesting...don't see how it would work that way...think it just made good story line...but we will see...

[Black Butterfly]

You could be right 100mile and it is just a story line, I didn't think of that.
It could give a nice advantage against missile boats in certain situations if it is the case. Wait and see though, like you say.

[LordDeathStrike]

in every previous mechwarrior game, you can not lock on to a shut down target or a friendly target with locking missiles. hence if you power down, lrms cant target you with a lock, only direct fire rocket style. of course shutting down does nothing for someone just finding you and unloading their direct fire weapons into your head point blank.

[BigJim]

I would imagine missiles would also lose their lock, like in most games that have a lock-on facility, but if the missiles have already aimed themselves towards you I doubt it would do much good.

Tbh I like where your question is going but I think you're reading too much game-mechanics into a bit of creative writing

[Blastkowitz]

If the missile requires radar lock I can see where a shutdown mech would cause the missile to loss lock and with that a possibility of not getting hit. If the missile requires heat, laser or even if its a dumb fire a mech that is shutdown would still get hit; as the mech would not have expelled enough heat by that time to make any difference, laser just requires that the target still be there, and dumb fire well is dumb it keeps going till it hits or runs out.

[BlindProphet]

Missiles were inbound, he dashed for cover, and when in cover he shut down.

Now....why would he do that?

Well cover protects him from the missiles, as evidenced by the missiles hitting the cover. Shutting down also ditches any locks that people have on him as he's now behind cover and shut down. Did the shut down also ditch the missiles lock? Hard to tell, he got shut down just before missile impact so...

But shutdown would have ditched any locks that people had on him, which is what he needed as he then ditched cover and was on the move again. Would have been bad for him if he hadn't as he might have stepped out of cover into another swarm of LRMs...which would have been bad.

[GHQCommander]

I read it like the reduce heat and energy signature made the missiles pound the building being used as cover.

Plus by shutting down, the attack no longer has a target, encouraging them to move closer and with LRM if they move too close they cannot be fired. That is something made clear on a video.

So then you can switch her back on and run towards the enemy as fast as you can. Forcing them to fire lasers. That is important because ammo hurts especially from what I seen on the video.

[OpCentar]

The way I understood it is that only powered up mechs can be targeted for missle lock and tracked after achieving target lock.


Powering down should make the missle tracking system lose its ability for auto correction thus making them continue in a straight line towards last known target position - usually hitting nothing and exploding after running out of fuel or hitting some hard cover/rock/wall etc.


I have no idea how was this dealt with canon wise, if anybody knows please do tell for this is an interesting topic.

[Felix]

Could be useful, if you dash into cover as missiles are coming in and go dark the enemy might assume you were killed by his missiles if he has other targets on his mind in the same area.

Gives you a tactical advantage to come flying back out of cover and take him while he is on another mechs case.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Hopefully a talented scout will be able to maintain a lock on a target that is close enough. Ignore scout mechs at your peril. =)

[wanderer]

blindprophet, on 22 June 2012 - 05:13 AM, said:

Missiles were inbound, he dashed for cover, and when in cover he shut down.

Now....why would he do that?

Well cover protects him from the missiles, as evidenced by the missiles hitting the cover. Shutting down also ditches any locks that people have on him as he's now behind cover and shut down. Did the shut down also ditch the missiles lock? Hard to tell, he got shut down just before missile impact so...

But shutdown would have ditched any locks that people had on him, which is what he needed as he then ditched cover and was on the move again. Would have been bad for him if he hadn't as he might have stepped out of cover into another swarm of LRMs...which would have been bad.

I suppose it'd depend on how long it takes to re-establish lockon. You could go to cover, power down, break any existing locks, then dash to new cover before they could get a proper heading and avoid getting bombarded again. In areas with lots of buildings/cover, just shaking lock once might be enough to reduce your pain and suffering considerably.

Perhaps the devs are giving us clues on how we'll see other players, and what you can do to evade them...

[LanceHavenbay]

The missiles lock onto your mech's signature. When you power down, this destroys your signature until you power back up. Although the missiles will still be headed toward you, they will only land where they were last locked. If you shutdown, then move, the missiles no longer seek you. You do not show up on enemy radar either.

This is what I remember from long ago when I played MW3-4. I'm fairly sure these statements are accurate. And I would like to say I learned this in a mission or something?

I am also not sure if this applies is MW Online. I will check and verify this for you.

I'm not exactly sure, but I'm pretty sure your signature was caused by heat. Shutting off your mech with sufficient time to cool to 0 allowed you to have no heat signature, and therefor nothing to lock onto. When you break a lock, the missiles already sent out no longer have you listed as a target. Your past signature is pretty much considered a "dead" target. And any new missiles fired at you upon a new lock when you startup, will follow a new "live" signature. If that makes sense?

Essentially, your heat causes the signature to move. No heat. No signature. Once you lose that signature, you can freely reboot with a fresh one. :DDD However, try to shutdown under cover. Because being shutdown, turns off all your systems. You have no idea where enemies are, and if you are deep in a hostile zone, this could potentially be even worse.

Shutting down is a tactical function, that if used properly, can insure your survival.

[LanceHavenbay]

Pretty sure MW Online does not have this function... Just tested it, and I got nailed by every single missile, and they just kept coming. They really need to make it so that shutting down AND your heat reaching 0%, COMBINED = loss of digital signature. NARC, however is a physical mark and shutting down will/should not effect the lock. TAG I am unsure of. TAG is a relay of the mechs signature to the Lance. So, I would assume that means that it can be broken? I am unsure.

Edited by LanceHavenbay, 04 October 2012 - 01:57 AM.

[Magnus Harper]

I've found powering down is a pretty effective way of dodging LRMs at times- however, if they have a clear line of sight, they can still aim at your prone mech and dummy fire. I've use this on River City a few times while skulking into position with my own Cat. It's situational but when it works, it works!

[Stormyblade]

I've noticed that very recently (as in the last couple of nights) when I took an Atlas with LRMs I would "lock" the enemy 'mech and fire a salvo and suddenly lose lock for a few seconds while the missiles are in mid-flight. Then, suddenly, I would re-acquire the same target and re-establish missile lock all over again. I'm starting to wonder if some pilots aren't trying to use the power down/power up as a tactic to avoid missile salvos??

[RumRunner151]

Necro alert...topic revived from June.

Powering down does work if done correctly. Break line of site, power down, power up, move keeping out of line of sight.

The last patch brought a different mechanic in that a mech that overheats now breaks locks when it shuts down, so Stormy may be locked onto a mech that shuts down due to overheating.

[Kobold]

Also if the missile firing mech is out of sensor range, and relying on a teammate for targeting data, if that teammate loses LOS for a moment (which can happen just from turning their back to the enemy) the LRM boat will lose lock. Once the teammate gets eyes on target again, he can reacquire lock.

One of the nice thing though: If you lose lock mid-flight, then reacquire it, the missiles will try to change direction in mid air to head for the target still.