9 replies to this topic

[Sable Dove]

Designate a point in the missile trajectory to be the 'lead' missile. This point is invisible, indestructible, and will always track to a target; even through terrain. The lead missile disappears when it hits the target mech.

All missiles in the volley will attempt to converge on this point at all times.

Missiles must always maintain a minimum distance from each other. Always.

5 LRMs will hit a pretty tight area. 40 LRMs will pretty much be artillery; many missiles will miss the target outright because they are too far from the lead missile to hit the target. However, they will also pretty much negate AMS, since it can't destroy enough missiles to make a difference.

6 SRMs hit very tight. 36 SRMS will spread so much that unless you're touching the enemy mech, many will miss.

Streaks would probably not see much difference, but that's a whole 'nother balance issue.

Obviously Artemis would reduce the minimum distance between missiles, resulting in tighter formations.

[focuspark]

starting to feel like a broken record here but...

There's nothing wrong with "boating" or the concept of using many of the same weapon type. It's inherently desirable to do so because you can bring all of your firepower to a single optimal range and lead for most effective impact on you opponent. The only thing boating does is multiply other unbalances in the game making them more apparent.

[Sable Dove]

Well, the Devs don't agree with you. After all, boating was such an issue that they introduce a system to almost completely negate LRMs and SSRMs so that players would have to use other weapons.

The problem with missiles is that they have a tendency to pinch at certain points, meaning that 40 LRMs can potentially one-shot just about anything by dealing 72 damage to a single area, and can be fired fairly frequently.

I don't have a huge issue with the concept, but in execution, Boating and specializing is just so much more powerful than building a rounded mech, that there's no point to having a mix of weapons. It doesn't help that boating can also depend on the enemy. With enemy ECM, SSRM and LRM boating is terrible. Without, they're very powerful.

I would like to see more mixed-range mechs. Instead, I see SRM Cats, PPC boats, and the occasional LRM boat, who is either devastating, or worthless.

I never see anyone with both LRMs and SRMs, because it's beat at long ranges by LRM or PPC boats, and it's beaten at short ranges by SRM boats, so it's just plain inferior to specialized mechs, and odds are it's going to find an SRM boat before it can close on the long range mechs and exploit its minor advantage over them.

[RagingOyster]

Wow, a very interesting idea. I like it a lot, personally.

Boats annoy me to no end and the idea of a "lead point" that all missiles would follow combined with a minimum distance between individual missiles would make masses of LRMs ineffective..... but only when fired together. We would then see LRM boats chain firing missiles so they would have many precise, back-to-back strikes for the same damage rather than one powerful volley. Still, i think your concept would be s big step in the right direction.

[focuspark]

Sable Dove, on 09 February 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

Well, the Devs don't agree with you. After all, boating was such an issue that they introduce a system to almost completely negate LRMs and SSRMs so that players would have to use other weapons.

The problem with missiles is that they have a tendency to pinch at certain points, meaning that 40 LRMs can potentially one-shot just about anything by dealing 72 damage to a single area, and can be fired fairly frequently.

I don't have a huge issue with the concept, but in execution, Boating and specializing is just so much more powerful than building a rounded mech, that there's no point to having a mix of weapons. It doesn't help that boating can also depend on the enemy. With enemy ECM, SSRM and LRM boating is terrible. Without, they're very powerful.

I would like to see more mixed-range mechs. Instead, I see SRM Cats, PPC boats, and the occasional LRM boat, who is either devastating, or worthless.

I never see anyone with both LRMs and SRMs, because it's beat at long ranges by LRM or PPC boats, and it's beaten at short ranges by SRM boats, so it's just plain inferior to specialized mechs, and odds are it's going to find an SRM boat before it can close on the long range mechs and exploit its minor advantage over them.

Um... I've never seen a dev post stating that boating was bad. I've seen them say SSRM needed looking into, and the introduction of ECM has been a complete cluster **** - so that's not going to win you any debates with me.

The missiles don't actually "pinch", that's just the animation which has virtually nothing to do with how the damage spread is calculated. You're going to have to accept that what you see is just an approximation of what's really going on.

Of course specialization is more powerful than generalization! Have you ever played any other customization game, ever? Have you looked at the history of mankind? Specialization is what we do, it's how we've evolved or civilzation. Do you see barber surgeons anymore? No you don't because you see 150 different kind of medical specialist these days because they're better at it.

You don't see people with both LRM and SRM because it's suicide to do so. LRM become useless by the range where SRM become useful. You can only bring 50% of your mech to bear at any one time - that'd be a plain stupid build. Sorry.

[Sable Dove]

But the way specializing works is generally that you become very good a one thing, at the expense of being good at everything.

The problem is that there's not really any way to force specialized players into uncomfortable ranges without first running into someone specialized in short range. Really, it's a product of map design that long-range specialists can hide in the back knowing that the odds of someone getting past the SRM Cats in front is very low. A general-purpose should beat a specialized mech at anything that isn't the specialized mech's forte. A general-purpose mech should be able to get close to a long-range specialist, or keep away from short-range specialists.

But it doesn't work that way. Long-range mechs are very effective at medium- and long-ranges, while short-range mechs are extremely effective at short ranges, and since there's not really any way to force them to engage at long ranges, they just sit around and ambush whoever comes along while the long-range specialists.

The basics of what I'm saying is that if you specialize heavily in one range, you should suck at all other ranges, while split-range mechs should be good at all ranges. And there should be points in the map where players can force enemies to engage at medium or long range.

[roflplanes]

Cool idea, but how do you deal with an LRM20 stuffed into a Raven with 5 missile slots then? It fires four groups of 5 in rapid succession. So is each group independent or do they group together somehow in the air?

[Sable Dove]

roflplanes, on 09 February 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

Cool idea, but how do you deal with an LRM20 stuffed into a Raven with 5 missile slots then? It fires four groups of 5 in rapid succession. So is each group independent or do they group together somehow in the air?

Each group would be independent, I think. This will give them the advantage of tighter grouping, but at the same time, AMS will be more effective, because if we say AMS destroys two missiles from every group, 20 LRMs at once would hit a large area with 18 of them, while said Raven will hit a tighter area with only 10 LRMs left.

[Stringburka]

I don't see your argument really focusspark. It seems as if you are saying "there is no issue with boating because it's more powerful than having varying weapon loads". If that is the case, I don't see how that works. If something, one could argue the reverse - that the fact that boating is more powerful means there is an issue.

I think it's a matter of style, mostly. We play MWO because it's fun, and part of what makes it fun is the style. The more the 'mechs start to deviate from the design themes established in lore, the more of that "fun" is reduced. However, there is also "fun" in customizability and being able to find nice combinations - and enforcing the standard designs reduce _that_ part of the design.

I think a good design goal is that 'mechs should _usually_ fill roles similar to what they where created for, and if you want to make, say, a support 'mech like the A1 into a brawler you should from an optimization viewpoint probably pick another 'mech.

Boating, and in general straying too far from the original design, shouldn't be _encouraged_ by the system (that is, more effective than having varying loads), but it shouldn't be _forbidden_. Someone with very high skill, or unique type of skill, should be able to be effective with an unusual 'mech - but there's a reason the stock 'mechs where the standard design; those where good designs. Otherwise they wouldn't be stock.

That said, I'm not particulary in favor of the OP's suggestion - because I think boating shouldn't be discouraged in the cases where it's part of the 'mech itself (the catapult having loads of LRM's being an excellent example). I think it's a hard design issue to solve without leaving the Canon far behind, and have no real suggestions, but well, maybe someone else has.

[roflplanes]

Sable Dove, on 09 February 2013 - 12:52 PM, said:

Each group would be independent, I think. This will give them the advantage of tighter grouping, but at the same time, AMS will be more effective, because if we say AMS destroys two missiles from every group, 20 LRMs at once would hit a large area with 18 of them, while said Raven will hit a tighter area with only 10 LRMs left.

See, that's not really fair to knock out 4x the number of missiles though... I like the concept a lot, but it would be a tricky balance.