138 replies to this topic

[SteelPaladin]

XenomorphZZ, on 11 December 2012 - 08:09 AM, said:

Wait what? I thought C3 was need to share targeting telemetry between mechs? I mean if the Catapult wanted to fire at a target out of its LoS, while a Jenner had LoS of the target, both mechs would need a C3 computer in order for the Jenner to "spot" the target for the Catapult...

Or atleast that was my understanding...

From Sarna;
C3
"Basically a special tight-beam communications network, they are used to share targeting data between 'Mechs and Combat Vehicles."

LRM indirect fire is more like calling in an artillery strike old-school style. The mechwarrior gets on his radio and basically just calls out coordinates to fire on. The LRM firing mech takes extra penalties for firing that way versus direct fire. It's also why ECM couldn't stop indirect LRMs in TT (there's nothing to "jam" except the spotter's radio).

The advanced targeting gear gives you ADVANTAGES to firing using another mech's targeting data, like getting to use their range to target for your attack roll instead of your own. So you could be 15 hexes away w/your ER PPC, but your buddy 6 hexes away from the enemy w/targeting gear lets you roll to-hit as if you were firing at short range instead of long.

I actually have no idea how they would implement an effect like that in MWO, since there are no rolls.

Edited by SteelPaladin, 11 December 2012 - 08:29 AM.

[CrashieJ]

A.I.D.S. Automatic Identification Dumbfire Streaks

they wipe out millions...

[BerryChunks]

Liked and bumped.

[Corvus Antaka]

mech3 LRMS.

mech 4 SSRMS

done.

[Kaijin]

SteelPaladin, on 11 December 2012 - 07:51 AM, said:

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at by referring to "free C3i" and buffing LRM damage. C3 was never needed to spot for indirect LRM fire.

But it would be required to share radar data, and we do have that.

[BerryChunks]

What i dont like about ECM is that it stacks, turning "soft" problems of destroying BAP, TAG, NARC, C3 comp, into hardcore problems of destroying any targetting at all.

[Roland]

That was a good post Kobold. I think you've correctly localized one particular major issue, which is the skill vs. reward element of guided missiles. However, I think another key aspect of this is the damage done by these weapons.

Currently, most weapons in this game do damage that is roughly in line with their TT counterparts. When there is a disparity, it's usually very small.

But this is not the case with missile weapons.

SRM's do a full 125% of their damage from TT. This has the effect of giving them one of the highest damage/weight ratios in the game. And this, I believe, is what makes them so horrifically broken compared to other weapons.

An SSRM cat was able to fire off 6 SSRM's... or 12 missiles. At 2.5 damage per missile, that was a 30 point alpha... A magically guided 30 point alpha that would just always crush the target.

But what if those missiles only did ONE damage per missile? Then that configuration is firing off 12 point alpha strikes. It's perhaps not TRIVIAL damage, but it's certainly no longer a huge threat to non-light mechs. Now, that value make be too low, but perhaps we can find some damage value where the SSRM is no longer really super awesome. Certainly, making it lower than unguided SRM's would help balance out the skill disparity between the two weapons.

I think that perhaps it is this damage disparity which is causing a major balancing problem for these weapons... not simply that they are too easy to use. Because, in an attempt to try and fix it, without modifying that damage value, we get the current situation...

When ECM is on the field, these weapons end up doing virtually no damage at all... But when ECM isn't on the field, they just obliterate everything in sight.

If their damage was somewhat muted, perhaps with LRM's going back to 1 damage per missile, and SSRM's going to less than 2 per missile, I think you could remove some of the other attempted nerfs of these weapons (like backing off of some of the ECM effects), without these weapons becoming totally dominant.

[Helbourne]

As long as they keep repair and rearm out of the game, you might as well allow Streaks to miss. One of the big points to Streaks was not using / carrying as many missles. Now without paying for ammo, who cares if you miss or not. Maybe when community warfare gets in the game, they could put repair and rearm back in. RnR was a balancing mechanic in the TT game. Imagine if your on a planet that may not have replacements for your damaged / destroyed weapons. Perhaps the planet your on has only 10 long range missles to go around.

Back to my thoughts on Streaks; Maybe they need to have longer targeting times. Maybe you have to click and hold the fire button for a second before they fire as they ensure a good lock-on. Or how about you have to have a lock-on AND the cross hairs have to be over the target before they fire.

[Assault One]

Great discussion going on here. I agree with having each Streak system needing to achieve locks individually. I would also like to see some sort of firing cone if possible.

[Deamhan]

LRM are the closest thing we have to indirect fire weapons. They are a support weapon and a teamwork feature I recall reading about is how, with the ability to lock onto an enemy that is seen by a team mate, you can rain missiles down upon that enemy.

So as far as solutions go. The skill should be the maintaining of lock. Lasers are easy enough. You point at your target and shoot. The skill is simply keeping the crosshairs on them for the duration of the shot. Direct fire projectile weapons are something else. You need to manually lead the target. Since the distance you have to lead is determined by things like, their lateral speed in relation to yours, distance and projectile travel time, there is more skill involved in landing good shots from these weapons as opposed to lasers.

So for LRMs, you select the target and then it should only take keeping your crosshairs within the target box. The moment the crosshairs leave the target box or you lose the target box the missiles stop tracking. No more of this maintaining of lock for a certain amount of time after the crosshairs leave the target box area.

As for hit locations. When it comes to the LRMs, i've been in matches where a painted target (with no ecm) was hit with artemis LRM rounds and I watched as their whole mech got the damage glow and watched as their whole mech flashed (since I too had them targeted). This is as it should be.

With SRMs, they are not guided. They are also not insta travel and so you have to lead your target. They also have a spread. You don't have the option of sitting back at 1km firing rounds over a hill. You have to be within 270m.

SSRMs have the lock, but they still require you to be up close and their shot trajectory is direct which requires you to have line of site to the target.

Edited by Deamhan, 06 January 2013 - 10:24 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Kobold, on 06 December 2012 - 01:02 AM, said:

Foreword for Garth: You had to put up with my ECM question(rant) in a NGNG podcast. You've seen so many posts from me about the topic, I'm sure. Sorry about all that. I'm giving up my ECM crusade and following my own advice: Focus on the real problem.

TL; DR summary - This post is about fixing the underlying mechanics of guided weapons in MWO. All this talk about ECM overlooks the fact that many people have problems with how Streaks and LRMs function. Rather than use ECM as a band aid for the underlying problem, why don't we address the issue of the missiles? This post is long. Very long. Fair warning.

We will be only talking about a status quo world to start with. This means TAG, Narc, Artemis, ECM, etc get addressed AFTER addressing the underlying mechanics.

Step 1: Premises

Premise 1: Many people think LRMs provide too much benefit for the level of skill required.

Premise 2: Many people think Streaks provide too much benefit for the skill required AND the tonnage required.


Background: Know where we came from to know where we are going

As way of background, lets note the functionality of LRMs and streaks in tabletop.

In tabletop, all weapons require to-hit rolls. The LRM, gauss rifle, PPC, and ER large laser all have the same chance to hit at functionally similar ranges. Streak SRMs have the same chance to hit as normal SRMs or medium lasers, at the same ranges. When LRMs do hit, they hit for a variable amount of damage. Streaks, weighing more than standard SRMs have two benefits in tabletop. First, when they hit, every missile hits (as opposed to the partial damage dealt by normal SRMs and by LRMs). Second, when they miss, they do not waste ammo or generate heat. Damage, tonnage, ammo, and heat is relatively balanced based on these assumptions.

PGI changed some of these assumptions.

For LRMs, the lock on feature made them much more likely to hit (massively more likely, in that they hit all the time). There is at least a slight trade off, in that the very slow missile travel time means the target of the missile has time to seek cover. However despite the slow travel time, it still requires very less effort to hit someone who is walking in the open with significant numbers of missiles compared to hitting them with consistent AC2 fire, or holding a large laser beam on them, for example. If you are firing at someone who is currently brawling, you will get very consistent damage without having to aim, and you barely even risk hitting your own teammate.

This is the source of Premise 1.

For SSRMs, not only do you not have to aim as much as SRMs, but your target for the most part cannot even try to evade your shots. The current issue of all the missiles hitting the torso is said to be being addressed by the devs. However even without that, while it is correct that Streaks are supposed to hit with every missile every time they connect, we are still in a situation where the streaks are hitting every time the pilot pulls the trigger, which is far, far more powerful than any other current weapon. This goes even beyond the LRMs, which can at least be evaded... kind of.

This is the source of Premise 2.


Goal 1: Add skill to guided missiles.

Both Premise 1 and Premise 2 address the issue that guided weapons are just too easy to use. While one way to fix this would be to simply reduce the damage of the weapons until one can consistently do more damage with the "skilled weapons," this is not the preferred method.

Because the skill level of the player base varies widely, it is nearly impossible to fairly balance a "static, easy damage" weapon against weapons whose damage output varies with skill. If they are balanced for a low ELO player to do better with aimed weapons, then they will be basically worthless in games between skilled players. If they are balanced to do ok damage compared to that dished out by skilled players with lasers or ballistics, then they will do far too much damage in the hands of newbies against other ELO matched newbies.

The goal should be to instead add more skill to the use of missiles first.

Why are guided weapons easy to use right now? Right now, an LRM boat's cross hairs don't have to stay on the enemy mech, they only need to stay near the enemy mech. Once lock is attained by an LRM boat or streak user, the crosshairs again only have to stay "near" the target.

PGI has already shown us that they can do lots of things with how lock ons and missile paths work, and they can do it dynamically while missiles are in the air. Variables such as lock on time, missile path, and missile spread are all modifiable by various pieces of equipment. I would like to see one other thing modifiable as well, if the code does not already support it: angle of lock

By adjusting these all depending on conditions in play, you can create escalating difficulty in using guided weapons, depending on the factors present. I propose a series of possible ways to improve the level of skill required in guided missiles in a status quo world. The presence of positive influencing factors (TAG, Narc, Artemis) can improve performance, allowing lower skilled players to perform easier, and rewarding teamwork. These ideas can be used all together or in part, but would work best together as part of an entire systemic overhaul.

Here is an example of one way to do it:

• Case 1 - Non-targeted locking: Allow locking onto and firing of weapons at targets that are not targeted, but to which the launcher has line of sight. This will be the baseline setting. This lock on should take longer than standard to lock on, require that the launcher's cross hairs stay completely on the target at all time, should be lost as soon as the cross hairs move off the target.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Case 2 - Line of Sight, Targeted locking: When firing at a target which the launcher has line of sight and had the target selected, lock on should occur faster than in Case 1, but still slower than the current default lock speed. Further, while we may wish to not require the cross hairs to be directly on the target, I would advocate a "lock angle" that is smaller than what we have currently in game, to make it marginally harder to maintain lock on a moving target, especially while moving yourself.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Case 3 - No Line of Sight, Targeted locking: This is our indirect fire mode. It should be somewhere between Case 1 and Case 2. It should be less effective than when you can see the target. Possible solutions would be a longer lock on time, quicker loss of lock, and wider missile spread.

The result of these changes would be that LRMs are harder to use at longer range, harder to quickly get fire on a target unless you have a very quick aim, and would be less effective when fired indirectly, shifting the risk-reward ratio.







Once we have established a base line, status quo world that requires more skill to use LRMs, we can then add the positive influencing factor equipment to make significant improvements. Currently Narc is basically junk, TAG is ok but not great (current ECM functionality aside), and Artemis is decent, but a luxury. We can change this, to reward people who try harder to use teamwork.

Narc would allow for targeting (via "R") targets that are either outside of normal targeting range or to which the launcher or teammates do not have line of sight. TAG could significant decrease the lock on time or increase the "lock angle" for the cross hair. Artemis could significantly tighten the groupings (as it does now).

Now we have a situation where LRMs are harder to use effectively at a status quo level, and we have positive influencing factors that are much better than they were before. So now we can look at ECM. In TT, ECM blocks Narc, Artemis, and C3 (no effect on TAG). Because we've added TAG functionality to LRMs, however, lets let ECM block that too. Now ECM blocks all the fancy offensive technology that makes LRMs work better, but it is no longer a game breaker. Why not? Because we can still fire LRMs at enemies when we have direct line of sight! ECM has brought us back to the status quo world, LRMs can still be used, but require more effort.

Many of these principles involving lock on time, angle of lock, and quickly losing lock apply to streaks as well. If you allow streaks to slowly lock on enemies which you don't have targeted, and have them quickly lose locks, they suddenly become functional in an ECM world if you still want to "cloak" mechs in the bubble. Are they as functional? No, but they can at least be be used if you have the skill to hold the target.


Goal 2: Reduce effectiveness of Streaks.

However, even applying the above rationale to Streaks may not be enough. Consider for the moment that a Streak Cat carries 6 SSRM2s, a total of 9 tons of weapons. They are a devastating force once they have lock, because it is trivial for the pilot to keep firing and keep hitting. As we stated before, in the source material (TT), Streaks are supposed to be as hard to hit a target with as SRMs. Here we clearly aren't just looking to add skill to the weapon, but we want a straight nerf.

Step 1 is already going to be done by the devs, which is to have the missiles target components at random. This will alleviate the "all damage to the CT" problem completely, but it won't change the fact that, in comparison to SRMs, Streaks hit their target far more often (in that they hit all the time). For fast moving mechs, this is a much bigger issue, because even with spread damage, a Jenner will quickly die even to 12 normal tubes of SRMs if they never miss.

Step 2 should be reducing the chances a Streak user has to hit the target! The simplest solution here is to tighten the lock on parameters significantly. As we saw in the LRM example, we could use a combination of increased lock on time as well as losing lock as soon as the crosshairs are off the target. All of a sudden we've created a situation where it takes much more effort on the part of the launcher to hold the target, even if the actual firing of the missiles is easy.

Other options for dealing with streaks: Notably I have ignored a few options for "balancing" streaks, such as heat or recycle time. Part of this is for canon reasons (a Streak 2 should not generate more heat then a standard SRM2), but also because, effectiveness wise, heat and recycle time are not good balancing factors unless the only thing you are trying to adjust is DPS. If you can kill someone with one alpha of a massed weapon (see: Vulture A, 60 ton clan mech with six SSRM6 launchers), then it won't matter what the cooldown time or heat load is.


Conclusion:

Even if you don't like my proposed solutions, the point of this thread is to focus on the underlying issues (functionality of Streaks and LRMs), not to argue about ECM. ECM arguments should happen, yes, but only AFTER we come to a consensus on what should be done with Streaks and LRMs in the absence of ECM.

Please remain respectful of one another when posting in this thread. Ad hominem attacks on people who choose to use specific weapons, or play in specific styles are unhelpful, as they distract from legitimate concerns and make it less likely that anyone from PGI takes a thread seriously.

I like it.

A small highlight for me is the NARC effect. With an ability like you propose, even a 15 second NARC can be worth it.. That's 3 LRM salvos that don't require someone maintaining line of sight and targeting the entire time.


One thing I would try to change, but it's a significant change - remove all locks afte ra missile has fired. That's currently impossible to do, since you must retain a lock for the entire firing duration. Other games seem to prefer the approach of "fire & forget", and while this may seem more powerful, it adds extra lock time for every missile salvo instead of making it a one-time cost. That can lower the effective rate of fire with such weapons considerable. It's exactly the kind of drawback streaks need IMO. Maintaining a lock with SSRMs isn't difficult.
And by having each individual missile salvo requiring its own lock, it becomes easier to reeinforce the advantages of TAG, NARC or ARtemis - everythnig that lowers your lock down becomes a recious commodity for each and every salvo you fire.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 07 January 2013 - 01:34 AM.

[Wildstreak]

LRMs can have Lock on to hit given the range, the real problem is if all missles are hitting. Even with Lock on, there should be a way to code in that a random number up to the launcher maximum hits. I remember back when I learned computer programming and I know the programming languages today always had a Randomize Function, all that should be needed is a way to incorporate when an LRM hits, randomize the damage done.

I do not think lock on time needs fixing but restricting lock on when the crosshairs are within the outline box surrounding the target would do, the outline box being what happens when you hit R and red corners form around a target making a 'box'. LRMs would have a smaller box due to distance to the target while SRMs including Streaks would be restricted from the crazy arc I have read they have.

[Darkaiser]

Lots of good ideas from the OP and others. I think that this thread demonstrates that there are a lot of things that can be done to balance things out.

I agree that we need to fix the missile issue before going forward. I haven't had the same problems with SSRMs as some of you have had but is so many people say there's a problem then I'm willing to look at things.

One fundamental change to LRMs came when they extended the range to 1 km. This is totally anti-canon and against the whole concept of game balance. In TT the weapon ranges were very specific and so therefore easy to balance. Sure, stick your head out and fire that PPC. I'll fire my LRM and we'll duel. Yours does point-specific damage, mine spreads it out. Yours generates more heat, mine runs out of ammo. There was an advantage to both. It also explained some of the stock designs that many players would laugh at today. Missile boats were designed to operate near supply lines so they could be reloaded. More balanced mechs could operate farther afield.

Every piece of equipment should have a distinct function and it should do that very well. TAG should allow for indirect fire with tight groupings because you either need LOS to put it on target or you need a buddy to help. Narc should accomplish the same thing but you have to actually attach the beacon which might then subsequently get blown off. ECM should allow for radar stealth or breaking missile lock but not both.

We need to fix the fundamentals first before we move forward or else we're lost.

[80Bit]

While it is pretty much pointless to post on page 7 of a thread...

Your arguments, while well thought out, are flawed. First, ECM was not put in to "counter" a broken guided missile system. It was put it to add another deep gameplay mechanic. Second, LRM and SSRM mechanics are not a "underlying problem".

SSRM: People are ticked out about SSRM not because they are to effective, or to easy to use. They are ticked off because of a netcode issue that makes fast moving mechs very hard to damage. Netcode is the underlying issue, not streak mechanics.

Even the biggest SSRM2 boat (A heavy) only has 8.58 DPS. And that damage spread across 3 sections.
My Hunchback has 13.75 DPS, and I can actually aim it to blow off arms, legs, or exposed areas.
If netcode were not a problem, and I could actually HIT that fast moving Raven that is throwing out a whopping 3 DPS of SSRM2 damage, it would be a non-issue.

Weapons should not be changed to address netcode.

LRM: The recent tweaks to LRMs, combined with ECM as part of every day life, has made LRMs very balanced. In my last several hundred matches, LRMs have only dominated tiny fraction of them. There is already a line of site vs non line of site mechanic with Artemis and TAG. When someone argues to me that something is still wrong with LRMs, I really have to shake my head in disbelief.


Side note: I would be fine with a change that says the more lock on weapons that you have trying to lock on, it longer it takes. I think that would add a nice extra level of depth, and encourage more NARC and TAG usage. I don't think it is needed to fix anything that is broken, I just think it would be a nice extra.

[Asheron Storm]

I agree with the OP for the most part, though I actually think the most basic problem underlying all of this is the H.U.D. in general.

Why does every single mech have access to information like what type of mech your facing, and how badly that mech is damaged in which locations? Isn't that the type of information that Beagle Active Probe supplies, along with mech load-out? In cannon, it would make perfect sense for ECM to block that information, and even more sense for only B.A.P. equipped mechs to have the info in the first place. If newbs are that concerned about what type of mech they're facing, let them equip a B.A.P. until they learn. Make people choose between having intimate (some would even say Carnal) Knowledge of the opposing 'mech and being able to hide such knowledge from your enemy.. as it is now, there's no real trade off.

Basic LRM's should (normally) be line of sight fire only and should have limited tracking only so they can possibly hit a moving mech. (In Battletech, mechs basically stop, just for the purpose of being shot at due to turn based play. That will rarely happen in MWO) TAG and NARC could both allow for indirect fire and "lock-on", with TAG trading the need for continuosuly Tagging the mech for the fact that it doesn't require ammo. C3 command console (on ANY friendly 'mech) would allow for indirect fire if the opposing 'mech is in LOS of any friendly 'mech, but the tracking shouldn't be as good as TAG or NARC. Artemis would slightly increase tracking of LRM's, only to make up for the more narrow spread which it should have.

Streaks should be able to hit any location that is at chest level. They shouldn't hit the opposing mech's legs or head (arms are iffy IMO).. if they're aimed at those locations, they just don't fire. Basically, if they're not aimed center mass then they might miss, which means they shouldn't fire.. but center mass doesn't always mean center torso.

ECM should make streaks work like regular SRM2's and should stop B.A.P., NARC, and C3 effects (depending on range of course).. they should do nothing against TAG.

[Kristov Kerensky]

The OP makes some rather large mistaken presumptions in his analysis of the situation, which isn't uncommon on these forums.

First off..all LRMs hit the target. Really? What game are YOU playing sirrah? I fired off 5 tons of LRM ammo in a match last night, TAG'd targets each and every time, and I got a grand total of 48 damage, that's using an LRM20 and 2 LRM15s. I had eyeballs ON the targets too, it wasn't something way over there behind a building/hill, I could SEE the targets. LRMs miss, especially if the target is moving around in circles(gee, never see THAT) or they take advantage of cover or you simply lose lock or they run out of range of the LRMs(I've seen more then few Lights go from 700m away to over 1km before the LRMs hit). And that doesn't include what effects ECM can have, as that was against an OpFor with 0 ECM Mechs.

I've also seen Streaks miss, due to movement of the target, the firing Mech or both. Terrain, other Mechs(friendly OR enemy) getting in the way, they miss the target.

So, something tells me that ECM wasn't just put into the game in order to make lock on weapons useless, because they were already somewhat easy to avoid to begin with. Add in that WITH ECM in, I'm still running a LRM support build and usually do 600+ damage and 5-8 assists per drop with it. TAG or not, I can put LRMs on target, they CAN be dumbfired you know...or did you know that? Seems lots of people have no idea you can do that with LRMs, dumbfire them and not only hit the enemy but kill them.

ECM in previous MW titles was a joke, some of you don't realize that because, well, no one used it! Did it ever occur to you to wonder WHY no one used it? It was pointless, that's why. That would be due to the fact that the previous MW PC games were all SINGLE PLAYER with multiplayer added as an after thought, and balance was always aimed totally at the single player experience, not the multiplayer. Radar in the previous MW games was also a joke, again, balanced for single player, which is why it works so great. Now we have a MW game being balanced totally around the multiplayer experience and we see things working differently then we saw in MW2, MW3, MW4 and MWLL(which isn't balanced and is built with combined arms in mind, mechs, tanks, air support, infantry, etc, and has it's own issues with OP elements completely ruining the game).

ECM currently isn't OP, it's just something that must be dealt with, something that CAN be dealt with with ease. It can be countered with ECM or TAG(if you can't keep a TAG on a Light at 700m, maybe your problem has nothing to do with the game mechanics), or you can just ignore it and use weapons that don't require a lock. I know, that requires skill on your part, but hey, it IS a game and games are meant to be tests of SKILL...

Not the tests of whining ability that they've seem to become over the past few years...

[Marcus Tanner]

Having weapons that bring a high damage/skill ratio is a good thing.

I repeat, having weapons that do a lot of damage for the skill required to use them is healthy and should be encouraged.

These weapons allow new players to get into a game without being frustrated and failing constantly. If someone needs to play 20 or 30 matches before getting a kill, there's a high probability that they'll just play something else. Losing all the time is no fun, even if it's against better players. Even when playing a game of skill. People will play because they *want* to be here, not out of any sense of obligation.

In addition, having these kinds of weapons can compensate not only for poor aim, but for poor ping or frame rate. LRMs and Streaks make the game more accessible for players that are just fine at the game, but remain handicapped by a poor computer or poor geography. I think it's good business practice to make the game playable by as many people as possible, even if that means some of the player base needs to use the n00b guns all the time.

A problem arises in cases where these high power/skill weapons can't be outmatched by more skilled players bringing different weapons. This creates what is called a First Order Optimal Strategy. Reducing damage and screen shake from lock-on weapons can leave them perfectly usable by many players while preventing them from being FOO strategies.

Yes, I think that LRMs and streaks are too good, but I certainly and vociferously do *not* want every weapon to have the same power/skill ratio.

XenomorphZZ, on 11 December 2012 - 08:09 AM, said:

Wait what? I thought C3 was need to share targeting telemetry between mechs?

No.

Every mech can share telemetry like position, loadout and damage estimates.

C3 uses that telemetry to help you aim, so long as you have LOS to the target.

Darkaiser, on 12 January 2013 - 09:06 AM, said:

One fundamental change to LRMs came when they extended the range to 1 km. This is totally anti-canon and against the whole concept of game balance. In TT the weapon ranges were very specific and so therefore easy to balance.

Most weapons got a range increase. For most of them, they do full damage up to their canon TT range value and half damage past that, up to twice the weapon's canon range.

Having LRMs do half damage past their normal range would be tricky, so I think they just let it do full damage all along, but at less than twice normal range. If they treated LRMs like lasers, then they would do normal damage out to 630m and half damage out to 1260m.

Kristov Kerensky, on 12 January 2013 - 11:30 AM, said:

(if you can't keep a TAG on a Light at 700m, maybe your problem has nothing to do with the game mechanics).

You're right, it might also be a problem with lag and/or frame rate.

In any case, I know that I have a real hard time getting a TAG lock on an ECM mech within 180m.

Also, dumbfing LRMs is bad. Really bad. They're casually easy to avoid.

Edited by Marcus Tanner, 12 January 2013 - 11:55 AM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Kobold I'm going to try and respond to this is what I feel is the best example possible.

My example includes an automatic shotgun, for brevities sake I'm just going to call it a shotgun.

A shotgun can either be fired from the hip or down the sights. Firing from the hip will cause damage to any target when pointed in a general direction. Though every pellet isn't going to hit the target, the likelihood of that chance improves depending on distance from the target. It also is effected by the movement of the target itself, especially if the target finds cover. Dumb firing LRM's are akin to hip firing a shotgun, you're likely to hit the target, but not with the full amount of damage possible.

A better way to improve chances for you to hit your target is to aim by using the sights. If you continue to aim down those sights as your target moves the likelihood of you hitting your target multiple times also improves. Though hip firing a shotgun multiple times in the direction of a moving target the percentage of hitting doesn't really improve at all. Having direct LoS to the target is equivalent to the same using LRM's and direct LoS. The target finding cover to avoid being hit depends on the size and type of cover, if you take that over to LRM's the same applies.

ECM is similar to a bullet proof vest. Even if you're shooting dumb fire LRM's the likely hood of you hitting is slim.

Now let's address SSRM's, though the base principles are similar. But let's treat SSRM's as being close to your target with the shotgun. At some point in time PGI changed the SSRM from always hitting CT to being dropped to guide and hit the LT,CT, and RT depending on the location of the shooter. I believe it's also been stated that that will change further to hitting and damaging any point that obstructs the lock for the CT. So if your RA is between the missile and the CT, you're going to hit the RA. Therefore making the SSRM a dumb fire SRM. But apparently the full implementation of that is due to netcode issues above the abilities/ problems of ECM currently. Because you cannot shoot an SSRM without the lock. When that bit of netcode is fixed to where SSRM's CAN be fired as SSRM's because they are within the ECM bubble then the SRM's become akin to a shotgun being fired down the sights.

TAG and NARC should basically work like a buddy telling you a target is behind cover, thus allowing you to shoot at the target. There is no guarantee you will hit that target though your buddy tells you where he is. Since you can fire on a target with your buddy using TAG your likelihood improves. But if your buddy loses sight or the target moves your percentage to hit decreases. NARC and LRM's are basically pointless with ECM because the target is (as an example), not only covered in a bulletproof vest they are also behind cover. You can't hit them and you never will.

My examples may not be perfect, but I feel they serve adequately.

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 12 January 2013 - 01:17 PM.

[valrond]

Please PGI, implement this system. It will bring a lot of balance to the game and skill using missiles.