36 replies to this topic

[Sug]

For some reason LRMs only suck when I'm using them. I'll launch multiple 2xLRM15 flights in my catapult with minimal effect on my targets but then i'll take a single LRM10 flight of return fire that strips my side torso bare.

[Protoculture]

Sug, on 06 January 2013 - 08:05 AM, said:

For some reason LRMs only suck when I'm using them. I'll launch multiple 2xLRM15 flights in my catapult with minimal effect on my targets but then i'll take a single LRM10 flight of return fire that strips my side torso bare.

I had the same thing happen earlier. It seems like range makes a difference and being closer seems to make more hit even though I thought the point of the LRM was, you know, Long Range.

[Roughneck45]

Im sure you had great damage though.

Use the LRM's to soften everyone up. As you just found out, taking down a fresh atlas can take quite a bit. Did you have artemis?

[8Ball-]

Ozric, on 06 January 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

Actually, it's armour. A R M O U R.

Isn't it amour in France? Where you don't need no stinking metal and the game is a hellofa lut more fun
French win again.

[Lykaon]

Protoculture, on 05 January 2013 - 07:02 PM, said:

Serious question. Here's what I just saw in my founder's catapult: ARTEMIS IV + TAG locked + 2x LRM 20's and it takes more than 600 missles to kill an Atlas that is literally not moving at all and did not have AMS or ECM, AND I had the high ground??

Looking at early post from closed beta missle damage was 2 per missle. Mwowiki says 1.8 either way that should be a LOT of damage raining from the sky, 72 per volley @ 1.8 assuming they all hit which I see no reason why they wouldn't. I know that missle damage gets spread out but this seems ridiculous.

I am thinking something is going wrong between launch and impact because a stationary Atlas that is being directly fired upon by a mechwith 2 LRM 20s that has a lock,Artemis and TAG on target should melt in 4 vollies tops.

I have little difficulty destroying targets with 3 LRM 15s (only 5 more missiles per volley) that are in direct line of sight hit by my TAG and locked onto at time of impact.

You may be doing something wrong.

[Protoculture]

Lykaon, on 06 January 2013 - 08:24 AM, said:

I am thinking something is going wrong between launch and impact because a stationary Atlas that is being directly fired upon by a mechwith 2 LRM 20s that has a lock,Artemis and TAG on target should melt in 4 vollies tops.

I have little difficulty destroying targets with 3 LRM 15s (only 5 more missiles per volley) that are in direct line of sight hit by my TAG and locked onto at time of impact.

You may be doing something wrong.

I wish I had a video to prove that what I said is exactly what happened.

[a rabid chihuahua]

I believe it's working as intended>with tag I can saturate a slow mech and do lots of damage to outright kill him,especially with tam work, and I run my tag continously on targets and try to update who I' am tagging at the moment.

[Even Dark]

Flapdrol, on 06 January 2013 - 03:08 AM, said:

2 LRM20 dont kill an atlas that quickly because there are mechs that can mount 4x LRM15

with my atlas i did, its works when the enemy atlas comes on free field to you and starting at 500m distance. just walk back and he never reach you with his ak20 srm build

[KhanCipher]

Protip: LRM15s have a tighter spread than LRM20s...

which speaking of which, i'm having no problems killing targets with my 2 LRM15s, 5 MLs, 1 TAG Stalker.

[Roland]

Something is inaccurate about the OP's story.

Two LRM20's+Artemis, against an Atlas with no AMS, will RUIN that mech... Hell, that loadout will strip almost all of the armor off of most targets.

For him to not be doing much to the target, he was somehow missing it. I'm not sure ow he was missing it, given his telling of the story.. but he was. Or there were other AMS mechs standing near the target.

[Matroid]

i've been using them for six months on different mechs with different styles:



- right now they are 1.8 damage per missile. in the past they've been anywhere between 1.7 and 2.0

- with just AMS in the game, they were balanced. you can share AMS with friends, and in my experience one
AMS stops about 10 LRM missiles. a single LRM10 couldn't hurt someone with AMS, but a CAT-C1 shooting the standard 30 (2x15) can get more than half through to a target. an Atlas/Stalker with two LRM20s can be brutal

- with ECM as before (shrouding the entire team) LRMs were usless. now they are just hard to use, because
you have to position yourself behind friendly mechs so the ECM on the enemy team doesn't affect you (it
currently affects the closest target, which is usually scouts or brawlers in front of you). or you could just carry ballistics and lasers.... and not worry about ECM at all....

- you have to stay with your team so you can't be singled out. being on a hill or cliff is great for the view,
but any scout or medium brawler will just get within 180 meters and ruin your day. if you stay with your team
(close behind them), the big brawlers will keep the light/medium mech harrasment to a minimum, then you just have to worry about keeping a 200-1000 meter distance to shoot your LRMs effectively

- flight time hurts you. when you launch missiles, the enemy sees "missiles incoming", and they go and hide
behind a building, hill, or under a bridge, or they can even power down to undo your lock. with the maps as
they are, there is so much hiding space that only caustic valley is to your benefit (1/4). the frost map,
forest colony, and port city (3/4) helps brawlers

- TAG helps you lock faster, and IMO Artemis helps your missiles fly faster (and slightly lowers the trajectory). staying 200-500 meters from an opponent is the best range, because they won't get much time to find a hiding place, and most missiles should hit




LRMs aren't bad, but they are so hard to use right now they really aren't worth it. thats why missile-heavy mechs like the CAT and AWS are being used less because they are reduced mostly to SRMs... since LRMs require so much effort to be effective. most people are using Atlas's and Cataphracts for the ballistic hardpoints until the game becomes more LRM friendly


Hadros

Edited by Hadros, 06 January 2013 - 07:40 PM.

[ArcDemon]

Backing up the teamwork thing. In a PUG with no teamwork LRMs are useful to soften up targets before engaging. When coordinated a little better a pair of LRM mechs supporting from the rear line and then engaging is a force multiplier. When working as a proper team with scouts spotting targets and neutralizing ECM those LRMs can totally dominate a match - some of the most brutal pugstomps are premades annihilating another team with LRMs without any return fire since they are 800m over a hill with assault mechs ready to fire on any mech that comes over (caustic valley is built for this).

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Here is why LRMs are messed up, and this needs to be addressed sooner than later before real LRM balancing can go into effect. For someone being involved within the closed beta, it was painfully obvious PGI was struggling for a long time to get LRMs to work even remotely close to what they wanted, never mind within the ballpark region of balanced.

During all this, keep in mind that Clan LRMs have zero minimum range and half the tonnage. Just imagine a cat with 6 CLRMs firing point blank at your face. Can you say hello 216 point alpha? Well I hope the Devs can, because that is EXACTLY where they are heading if they don't take a good hard look at how LRMs work in game.

-Bad mechanics

-BAP/NARC worthlessness

-ECM imbalance.

The first thing PGI needs to do to bring LRMs back on track to normalcy is to balance out the equipment (and maybe finish adding in weapon features like alternative ammo like inferno lrms or allow hot loaded LRM racks). After that is taken care of, LRM stats need to be reworked almost entirely. I'm talking minimum range mechanics, missile speed, damage per missile and accuracy.

So, first things first. Raw Damage Have you ever tried taking a Stalker or Awesome, and loaded it to the brink with LRMS? I'm talking like an LRM 80 salvo. If you're missiles make impact, current is 1.8 damage a missile, you're TWO shotting an Atlas (under 300m those suckers don't miss!). God help them if you're shooting at a light mech; they just instantly melt. The role of an LRM isn't to all out kill mechs, its to soften them up. But the sheer damage doesn't do that. It just kills. So, the damage stats are definitely off. Remember the Artiemis catastrophe then missiles only hit the CT of mechs?


The second point is Accuracy. Well ok, the LRMs horrible accuracy and weapon spread is meant to mitigate that. But here is where the problem starts to pick up. LRMs stats and weapon mechanics are built around being horribly inaccurate, but what happens when all the LRMs do make impact? Well, see the above paragraph. This is why the system is bad. PGI tried to balance hugely over the top raw damage with the assumption of bad accuracy, which doesn't always happen. It doesn't work.

The third problem is Missile Speed. Part of this compounds the accuracy problem trying to balance out the raw damage numbers. At range, firing on anything moving faster than 90kph means those mechs are nearly out running the missile itself. This leads to two scenarios. 1) The missiles that do make impact chase the target briefly meaning those missiles mostly hit in the rear torso. 2) That some mechs moving fast enough (especially on water and its missile sponge mechanic which is another topic for another time) means nearly all missiles completely miss the target. Yes, if you're in a light mech going fast enough, a quick turn means you've effectively dodged every missile salvo.

Finally, we have Minimum Range. Now now, I know Canon, LRMs have a minimum range in which they cannot fire -- but past mechwarrior games knew about this and thought, yeah no -- lets not do that and have some other solution. PGI has made their decision on trying to really stick close to TT, but this is one of those things that needs to be changed from canon. Keep the spirit of a minimum range, not the verbatim. Ask, why is there a minimum range, instead of blindly following TT? MW4's solution for instance was that LRMs fire mechanic and tracking made it pretty darn difficult to find their target close up. You could still fire and do damage, but it wasn't realiable, so anyway...

...here is one way("one", I should say one solution with many parts) to make LRMs more dynamic, useful and overall a LESS pain in the rear for the user and receiver of those LRMs. The first, change LRMs damage per missile to reduce the overwhelming raw damage. 1.8 damage a missile is absurd. Sure, it helps the trial mechs out with their single LRM10. Sadly, on a cutom mech a single LRM is pretty much wasted tonnage, but part of that is also the way LRMs work which I'll get to. For now, reduce that LRM damage back down to something like 1.4 or 1.5 damage after 180m. I'll get to why I say after 180m in a minute.

Well, good job Highlander, you just made LRMs completely worthless again. Now hold on, part of why PGI made LRM damage so high is because they are so inaccurate. So the second part is to make them more accurate to compensate. Wait a minute, now that 30 damage on an LRM 20 is still pretty darn good. A basic LRM 20 with no tags, BAP or Artemis will spread the damage a reasonable amount to still hold the spirit of the weapon. But, now when people want to mix TAG, BAP,Arteimis or a teamates with NARC into the mix, now the weapon has changed from a general support (again, in spirit of TT to soften the enemy mech up) to now somewhat precision missiles so people can use them as long range mech killers. Wow! Suddenly, theres a little more depth in the game and mechlab, too. Of course, that precision still depends on proper used of equipment and the use of LOS. Likewise, LRMs will still hold the bad accuracy when being fired around terrain, but become a much more formidable weapon system with direct LOS.

Now, the second part on accuracy was to increase missile speed. By what percent, maybe 150% of current? Basically, there is no reason why a mech should be able to out run a missile. Regardless of how much BT =/= reality, that is just a horrible concept. At the same time though, missiles shouldn't be made so quick as to that you don't have time to get under cover, either. The other side is, missile acceleration and velocity. Since we're maknig the LRMs a significant % faster to increase accuracy, but still allow mechs some time to take cover, make the LRMs need to accelerate to their max velocity when fired. This is also tied in part of balancing the last part

The minimum range mechanic. I am not a fan of this, and its not fun, especially for new guys who don't even realize it! Yeah, the game needs a tutorial but thats another topic. So, why did I say 1.4 damage (or 1.5, its just an example) after 180m and have LRMs need to accelerate to their max velocity? Well heres why. Change the minimum range mechanic to an optimal range mechanic. Allow these LRMs to still do damage within that 180m range, but not at full damage or even close to decent accuracy. In Canon, LRMs have a minimum range due to the LRMs having an arming distance, so (again, an example) change the LRM damage to something like .8 or 1 damage per missile within that range! That way, the're still useable (well, more so than now) and new players especially don't get frusterated when they're inside their trials firing thier missiles and thinknig "wth is going on?!". It also helps those who prefer to take a more balanced build, so that single LRM 10 or 15 now has that much more use, especially in the current brawler focused maps. Hell, PPC's right now do a very similar mechanic where they still hurt within 90m, just not nearly as much! (its a linear progression, where they do 5 damage at 45m, 3.3 at 30m, etc.) This still emphasises use of LRMs outside 180m, but doesn't digress them to glorified beach balls, either.

So, I guess here is the TL;DR summary.

-Reduce LRM damage to somewhere in the 1.4, 1.5 range

-Increase accuracy

-Fix equipment, giving a more meaningful impact on how LRMs perform/LRM role.

-Increase missile velocity

-Implement missile acceleration when initially fired

-Remove minimum range mechanic

-Reduce LRM damage to .8, 1 damage per missile range within 180m

-Reduce LRM accuracy within 180m

-Remove equipment/accuracy bonus within 180m

And as a side thing
-LRMs no longer start to do that missile swarm thing until they are closing in on the target.

There ya' go. LRMs are fixed and when that Cat with 6 CLRMs comes into battle, he/she won't instatnly melt you to death with 120 LRMs to the face. These changes are meant to still hold the spirit of the weapon and purpose through Canon/TT, but alter them so they are more fun and just make sense in a real time FPS enviorment.

[a rabid chihuahua]

Protoculture, on 05 January 2013 - 07:02 PM, said:

Serious question. Here's what I just saw in my founder's catapult: ARTEMIS IV + TAG locked + 2x LRM 20's and it takes more than 600 missles to kill an Atlas that is literally not moving at all and did not have AMS or ECM, AND I had the high ground??

Looking at early post from closed beta missle damage was 2 per missle. Mwowiki says 1.8 either way that should be a LOT of damage raining from the sky, 72 per volley @ 1.8 assuming they all hit which I see no reason why they wouldn't. I know that missle damage gets spread out but this seems ridiculous.

Don't now about you but I find mine are doing fine,though some may lag based on ping ,but I've even saturated and annihilated light mechs running by guiding my missles right into em, netcode and all and they took pretty much took all 2 salvos of LRM15's .

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

ECM.

That is all.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Jade Kitsune, on 06 January 2013 - 09:08 PM, said:

ECM.

That is all.

Borked ECM certainly isn't helping, but LRM mechanics aren't exactly good, either.

[Long Draw]

How about we just make a simple solution to LRMs and SSRMs not being viable when you are being disrupted, which is really at the heart of the problem.

Just make a toggle for all missile types to be switched to "Pre-Armed Mode" or "Post-Armed Mode". If you have to fire when disrupted or when the enemy is too close, you switch to Pre-Armed Mode and dumb fire them. The down side being for instance that your missile pod may jam like the UAC5 does randomly for a period of time.

As an LRM enthusiast, yeah, this would be annoying to have to switch back and forth, but hey, it's better than the ECM dominatrix alternative where I'm constantly being spanked for liking LRMs in the slightest.