18 replies to this topic

[Eleshod]

Alright I keep noticing a massive outrage against streak missiles on the forums here and i'm honestly confused.

From my knowledge and research, SSRM'2 do 4 damage total spread randomly on a mech depending on where the missile is fired from, farther away gives them slightly more time to split from the original path while still impacting the enemy mech.

My medium pulse lasers do 6 damage and being pulse the damage is delivered quickly and accurately... So honestly what am I missing, do streaks have an extra effect behind them, some sort of splash or something?

[l33tworks]

No, they just always hit (apparently, mine miss regularly) and don't cause much heat. I guess people cant do the same with lasers.

[DrSecretStache]

Title = +1. Nice wordplay there

[h00n]

Eleshod, on 29 January 2013 - 10:26 PM, said:

Alright I keep noticing a massive outrage against streak missiles on the forums here and i'm honestly confused.

From my knowledge and research, SSRM'2 do 4 damage total spread randomly on a mech depending on where the missile is fired from, farther away gives them slightly more time to split from the original path while still impacting the enemy mech.

My medium pulse lasers do 6 damage and being pulse the damage is delivered quickly and accurately... So honestly what am I missing, do streaks have an extra effect behind them, some sort of splash or something?

Heat. Honestly, heat.

I can hit a 3L with 3 streaks and ruin his day better than with 4 medium pulse lasers due to not overheating when trying to deter the 3L from shooting at your tasty back armor.

Edited by h00n, 29 January 2013 - 10:34 PM.

[Tarman]

I think the only real tweak they need is the magic-arc firing dialed to something partially sensible. Even with a solid lock the missiles shouldn't be sliding sideways out of the tube in a cartoon burnout directly towards the lock. Give them a bit of forward before they home. The rest of the kit seems fine to me anyway.

[GalaxyBluestar]

don't really care about them except they can curve in like a homing missles so they are the only fire and forget weapons in the game.

would it really hurt just to stop them curving into targets fired from speed freak lololol ecm lights. it's a point blank range weapon, is it that hard to aim at that range? disable the homing and you can still have a computer help you to fire them at the right moment except you earned the shot by aiming.

that's it really. i just feel it's the lazy mans brawl weapon.

[Falcor]

SRM's and SSRM's do 2.5 damage per missile, last I saw the damages posted anyway... its possible they've changed it, I'm not sure.

They're powerful because they always hit the target very easily with no need to lead ahead of them, making them equally as useful against the fastest light mech, as an Atlas. You're right, pulse lasers do more damage, but whats to keep an SSRM equipped mech from using those too? Any time a missile hardpoint is utilized with SSRM's, you're giving yourself guaranteed damage output every few seconds.

Some people claim to aim like Chuck Norris with SRM6's, and thats great. But for the average player who isn't as practiced, it artificially brings them up to par with someone who does, in terms of damage output.

[K0M3D14N]

Yeah. I've been piloting a Commando 1-B lately and I have to say that it's infuriating outpiloting another Light 'Mech and losing to him anyway because his Streaks never miss. All he has to do is strafe in one direction and click a button to win that fight- no skill involved at all. A tight turning arc at close range and high speed should be enough to throw the missile off-course out of the launch, which would turn streak vs non-streak light duels into something more strategic.

The Streak Light would have to risk exposing himself and breaking off to gain distance on the non-streak light and try to force him into a more linear fight. The non-streak light, on the other hand, would be doing everything he could to force the streak light to turn and render his weapons a bit more ineffective- especially on loaded Lights like the Raven 3L.

[BerryChunks]

Streaks hit the same spot on enemy mechs nearly 100% of the time, not like CBT rules. They have low heat, and they are superior to any other weapon in a "lag environment".

Duh.

[Tarman]

K0M3D14N, on 29 January 2013 - 10:43 PM, said:

Yeah. I've been piloting a Commando 1-B lately and I have to say that it's infuriating outpiloting another Light 'Mech and losing to him anyway because his Streaks never miss. All he has to do is strafe in one direction and click a button to win that fight- no skill involved at all. A tight turning arc at close range and high speed should be enough to throw the missile off-course out of the launch, which would turn streak vs non-streak light duels into something more strategic.

The Streak Light would have to risk exposing himself and breaking off to gain distance on the non-streak light and try to force him into a more linear fight. The non-streak light, on the other hand, would be doing everything he could to force the streak light to turn and render his weapons a bit more ineffective- especially on loaded Lights like the Raven 3L.

It puts some more stick time into using the Streaks effectively. Let them not waste missiles if the lock goes out of the fire arc, because that's a primary feature of the weapon. The fight would still be hard but it'd be on a bit more equal terms for other lights without changing the damage or removing it's decent advantage of being a lockon in the first place. Target drifts out of arc but not lock, you don't waste tubes. Even with the 360 it wouldn't be OP as you still need to have the actual launcher generally towards the target, and then your guaranteed damage is a bit more earned-feeling. It'd give good Streakers that Darth Vader I HAVE YOU NOW feeling when they nail a tough lock.

I think people could even stomach facing larger stacks of SRM if they had more complex operation to use successfully. Maybe not in the Atlas. Atlas, sorry, but you can't even dodge regular SRM salvos, you are the size of a small building. Just blow it up before you get shot up, you have enough dakka.

[Khobai]

Medium Pulse Lasers have a beam duration of 0.75 seconds. That means in order to deliver 6 damage to a single location you need to hold the beam on the same location for 3/4 of a second. Streaks hit 95% of the time and do their damage instantly to a single location. That makes Streaks significantly better at penetrating armor.

Streaks are undeniably the most effective weapon for killing light mechs.

Medium Pulse Lasers only have an effective range of 180m. Streaks have an effective range of 270m.

Medium Pulse Lasers require 13.33 heatsinks each to be heat neutral. Streaks only require 5.71 heatsinks to be heat neutral.

Streaks get quite a lot of ammo per ton and you only run out of ammo in protracted fights. Ammo is generally a non-issue.

So the only real downside to Streaks is ECM which can be countered by having an ECM of your own.

Edited by Khobai, 29 January 2013 - 11:11 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Eleshod, on 29 January 2013 - 10:26 PM, said:

Alright I keep noticing a massive outrage against streak missiles on the forums here and i'm honestly confused.

From my knowledge and research, SSRM'2 do 4 damage total spread randomly on a mech depending on where the missile is fired from, farther away gives them slightly more time to split from the original path while still impacting the enemy mech.

My medium pulse lasers do 6 damage and being pulse the damage is delivered quickly and accurately... So honestly what am I missing, do streaks have an extra effect behind them, some sort of splash or something?

Low heat. 100% hit rate, and 90% of the time still hit you center torso. Takes zero skill to use.

One or two, not a bog deal (usually) but combine it with ecm, where your own missiles and streaks are worthless, and they cannot miss? It ha neutered a lot of light mech chassis. Streak Cat w/6 of them can kill any other mech on the field (if ignored) in under a minute. Great from ambush... but the simplest answer is to torch their buns from range.

No, the biggest streak issue is the Ravens and 3 Streak Pack Commandos who just dog other scouts and can't miss.

[daFunkyUnit]

Its probably been stated many times, but I feel that streaks is the root of all this unbalance mess that we currently have.

Its not ECM thats ruining the game, its streaks. As stated above, they should make streaks such that it can not have a tight turn radius. Also, they should have the streaks hit random parts of the mech, not just consistently hit the torso. And also, they should allow firing streaks without lock, in which it becomes a plain ol' SRM2.

[Tarman]

daFunkyUnit, on 29 January 2013 - 11:11 PM, said:

Its probably been stated many times, but I feel that streaks is the root of all this unbalance mess that we currently have.

Its not ECM thats ruining the game, its streaks. As stated above, they should make streaks such that it can not have a tight turn radius. Also, they should have the streaks hit random parts of the mech, not just consistently hit the torso. And also, they should allow firing streaks without lock, in which it becomes a plain ol' SRM2.

This minor tweak should go with a minor tweak to ECM, which in turn prevents the Epacks being so dangerous, which reduces their eazymode pilot numbers. A lot of funky problems (not you >__> ) come from interacting systems rather than a single massive fix of one specific. It's like fighting a hydra, if you only attack one head you'll probably just make new problems.

[Warma]

daFunkyUnit, on 29 January 2013 - 11:11 PM, said:

Its not ECM thats ruining the game, its streaks. As stated above, they should make streaks such that it can not have a tight turn radius. Also, they should have the streaks hit random parts of the mech, not just consistently hit the torso. And also, they should allow firing streaks without lock, in which it becomes a plain ol' SRM2.

This is so true and I agree. Streaks should have a limited homing capability so that it would not be trivial to hit a light moving 130km/h. As it is, it's nigh impossible to win a streak-light without streaks.

[Khobai]

Quote

ts not ECM thats ruining the game, its streaks.

Yes and no. PGI is unwilling to nerf ECM because they don't want to backtrack on missile balance and have to rebalance both Streaks and LRMs. Theyre just hoping to ignore the underlying problem with an ECM bandaid.

[Phlyk]

As I have suggested before in a past discussion, with a few amendments:

"Currently the main issue I find is that lights have a "lag shield" (even after the latest patch it is still an issue) that makes it hard to deal significant and consistent damage to them, barring lucky or particularly well placed shots, without homing weapons (streaks/LRMs).

Once this issue is resolved you will be able to hit light mechs much more efficiently with direct fire weapons and the power of ECM (and streaks) will be more limited. As it is ECM is able to counter the only things that can routinely cut through the "Lag Shield", I think this is why it seems very powerful at the moment.

This is exacerbated in situations where you have mechs (2D, 3L) that can shoot through the "Lag Shield" with Streaks and cannot be shot back at in the same way.

I think we should wait until after the netcode fixes to definitively decide on this issue, that will be a re-balance in itself!"

[Goose]

If there's someone out there whom can kill off a Craven before being killed … then he must be one of the cowards driving Cravens, 'cause I never see much else.

Because of this, not much recon ever gets done …

[Chaldon]

I've mastered 3 scout chassis and I still think streaks are overpowered. Hugely so actually.

Now that I have 360 and adv target decay I demolish other lights while timing my shots until they crest the edge of cover- no more guessing. I've also noticed that I don't always need lock (well the corsshairs don't show lock) and they fire and zero in anyways... impacting just as lock is finalized.

As stated above the locking mechanism would be, IMO, best nerfed if it was activated 5-10m from the front of the launcher and had a longer turning arch for initial guidance towards to target. This eliminates the sideways launching and immediate rear firing they currently offer, they give fast & maneuverable targets opportunity to duck under cover, and finally, they allow the devs an option to hotkeydumbfiring. ie disable rocket guidance with period "."

Goose, on 30 January 2013 - 12:32 AM, said:

If there's someone out there whom can kill off a Craven before being killed … then he must be one of the cowards driving Cravens, 'cause I never see much else.

Because of this, not much recon ever gets done …

Then you are doing it wrong. Some scouts go in for brawling. If you truly want to scout- ignore the main roads.

daFunkyUnit, on 29 January 2013 - 11:11 PM, said:

Its not ECM thats ruining the game, its streaks. As stated above, they should make streaks such that it can not have a tight turn radius. Also, they should have the streaks hit random parts of the mech, not just consistently hit the torso. And also, they should allow firing streaks without lock, in which it becomes a plain ol' SRM2.

This guy gets it and he has only 6 posts. +1