95 replies to this topic

[Ashnod]

Rofl, on 18 February 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

No, ECM is kinda shunned in the clans. Goes against their 1 v 1 duke it out honorable style of combat

No it's not, just ghost imaging is frowned upon, many clan mechs and vehicles have ECM in either a prime or alternate config.

C3i and NOVA CEWS on the other hand are both considered an immediate breach in zelbrigen and are highly dezgra

Edited by Ashnod, 18 February 2013 - 01:09 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Khobai, on 18 February 2013 - 12:41 PM, said:

Not that hard to implement.

1) when you pull trigger, streak launchers fire an invisible dummy missile that tracks the target but has a chance of missing.
2) if the dummy missile hits, the streaks fire, and all the streaks automatically hit.
3) if the dummy missile misses, the streaks simply dont fire, but the cooldown is still expended as if you had fired.

There would be an odd firing delay between when you pull the trigger and the missiles actually fire... but that delay shouldnt affect accuracy much since at that point it wouldve already been determined if the missiles will hit or not (I suppose a friendly mech could step in the way though, but that can happen now).

aren't they implementing shot rewind stuff to deal with the lag anyhow? Would seem the same idea would work for determining if the Streaks actually would have hit.

Biggest thing is that Streaks should maybe all hit with a successful lock on, but should be in a cluster more akin to standard SRMs or ASRMS, and hit multiple locations. Also the hit should be based on the location aimed at. They still are largely torso seekers.

[Cache]

Bishop Steiner, on 18 February 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

They still are largely torso seekers.

They hit hips and shoulders as much as torsos, from what I've seen. They just look like they're hitting the torsos. There was a post by one of the devs about this back when they changed away from CT-only homing.

[Orzorn]

Cache, on 18 February 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

I thought about that, but the HUD is pretty busy already. I'm not convinced that's a good idea. In Closed Beta there was a feature where a thin circle around your reticule flashed when your shots hit your opponent (instead of the reticule itself flashing red as it does now). It was very distracting and received poor feedback, hence the change.

There's probably a few ways to have two indicators without making it feel cluttered. Make them smaller, or have the arm circle play double duty as the streak indicator by turning into a square and making a sound when a streak lock is gained.

And here's something as well. Remove streak's ability to regain lock faster if you recently lost it (if you start losing lock the circle begins spinnig the opposite way. Putting you reticule back on target makes it return back. In this manner you can gain lock faster if you return to the target faster) but streaks would lock on much faster than they do now. The downside is they have no lock box. Now you would be requied to be pointing at (as in the reticule is at leasr over some part of their body) them.

In this way streaks would require more aim than before but also be asier to gain a lock. If you are good at tracking a fast mech you would be rewarded, but you wouldn't get the free lunch you do right now.

Keep in mind streaks would still be 100% hits once you gained you lock.

[Rofl]

Ashnod, on 18 February 2013 - 01:08 PM, said:

No it's not, just ghost imaging is frowned upon, many clan mechs and vehicles have ECM in either a prime or alternate config.

C3i and NOVA CEWS on the other hand are both considered an immediate breach in zelbrigen and are highly dezgra

Good call. I do remember the Hellbringer having ECM. It also had a crazy set of equipment like AMS, MGs, Targeting computer, Active Probe... etc.

[Kyone Akashi]

To quote my own suggestion from another thread:

• Limit maximum turn arc: the SSRMs' mobility needs to be reduced to a level where they can still reliably hit fast-moving targets further away (thus retaining SSRM characteristic usefulness for "high speed chases"), but have difficulty tracking them in close distance "knife fighting", to the point where they would just miss them as the target rushes past the attacking 'Mech.
  
• Ignore Guardian-ECM: like in the tabletop, missiles should not be affected by standard ECM. This change would prevent this weapons system from being monopolized by ECM-'Mechs, with the result that everybody is allowed to bring the same toys to the fight.
  
• Require re-lock after each salvo: also like in the tabletop, the pilot needs to acquire a new hard lock for the next salvo after the first missiles have left their tubes.This option might necessitate breaking up the universal missile targeting reticule we have now into seperate ones for LRMs and SSRMs, however, so it may be difficult and too time-consuming to implement.

The developers are already aware of and investigating the perceived issue with Streak Missiles, as you can see in a Command Chair post on the Weapon Balance thread. It's just been some time since the last update.

Bishop Steiner, on 18 February 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

Biggest thing is that Streaks should maybe all hit with a successful lock on, but should be in a cluster more akin to standard SRMs or ASRMS, and hit multiple locations. Also the hit should be based on the location aimed at. They still are largely torso seekers.

They already impact on different locations. However, the way all missiles work is that they spread out their damage in a 3.5 meter splash radius - which means that for a light 'Mech with its generally small profile it does not matter much whether it hits your left, right or center torso. Repeated salvos will thus deal damage across the torso region until something breaks, regardless of where they actually hit you.

[Zyllos]

You know, I think someone else' suggestion to make SSRMs like CBT was a good idea. I will try and explain their idea:

When an SSRM launcher is fired, a laser is shot out to 270m.

For every 0.5s that laser is on the target, a single SSRM is fired out of the launcher.

The lockon location is 100% based on where the laser was aimed during the firing of the SSRM.

The SSRM will have a specific turning radius and speed (which is a bit higher speed but shorter turning radius than now).

What this will do is that if the SSRM launcher does not have a clear target with the laser pointer, it will never fire an SSRM, thus no ammo is wasted. This will also reduce the amount of damage with SSRMs overall, unless the pilot is skilled.

SSRMs will still fire under ECM, but will not home on the laser pointed target (basically makes them dumb fired SSRMs).

[LauLiao]

Everyone is talking about the "Fire or don't" mechanic, but I don't see anyone mentioning the fact that hit locations in TT were differernt for streaks. If I recall corectly, besides only firing if you hit, all the missles hit a single location, but not necessarily CT, but randomly determined by the hit location table. There have been times when I really really really wished I could aim for something OTHER than CT with streaks.

[Ashnod]

The real question is why is the lock retained after firing, conditions change and so the lock should have to be regained, said mech might have moved behind terrain and therefor the computer needs to workout a new path for its guaranteed hit if their is even a viable path to follow for the SRM's.

[zverofaust]

Zyllos, on 18 February 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

You know, I think someone else' suggestion to make SSRMs like CBT was a good idea. I will try and explain their idea:

When an SSRM launcher is fired, a laser is shot out to 270m.

For every 0.5s that laser is on the target, a single SSRM is fired out of the launcher.

The lockon location is 100% based on where the laser was aimed during the firing of the SSRM.

The SSRM will have a specific turning radius and speed (which is a bit higher speed but shorter turning radius than now).

What this will do is that if the SSRM launcher does not have a clear target with the laser pointer, it will never fire an SSRM, thus no ammo is wasted. This will also reduce the amount of damage with SSRMs overall, unless the pilot is skilled.

SSRMs will still fire under ECM, but will not home on the laser pointed target (basically makes them dumb fired SSRMs).

That's unecessarily spastic. All you need to do really is give SSRMs much shorter "unlock" time. F.E. it takes a good one or two seconds of not pointing towards your target for you to lose missile lock. SSRM should lose a lock the moment your crosshairs aren't on the target.

[Roland]

Broceratops, on 18 February 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

because at the moment of firing, it has yet to be determined 100% if you're going to hit or miss. it depends still on the movement of the target. also what does 'hit' mean. if i fire 18 srms and 3 hits, thats basically a miss to me.

If they worked like in the TT game, then the hit calculation would be done via random chance... basically, it does that now, but the chance is set to be 1.

If implemented like TT rules, each missile on streaks would have a chance to hit, and then any ones which were misses wouldn't fire. This would be superior to simply firing and missing, in that it wouldn't actually spend any ammo on that shot.

And while generally I don't like injecting randomness into a skill based game, I wouldn't actually see any downside in this particular case, since there isn't any real skill associated with streaks anyway. You're basically just injecting randomness to the ability of the computer to make your shot for you.

This actually would be a pretty good change to the game, if implemented. It would reduce the reliabilty of streaks down to those of skill based weapons, allowing skilled pilots to actually make direct fire weapons MORE reliable than streaks.

[Red squirrel]

Jman5, on 18 February 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

This is one of those things where we can cross that bridge when we get there. There is no point nerfing existing weapons because some time in the murky future there will be better versions out there. If Streak SRM 6s are released with clan invasion, then SSRMs should be balanced in tandem with that release.

I think Streak SRM 2s are fine at the moment. Purposefully weakening them for weapons that aren't even in the game yet would be a bad move.

Let's decelerate when we reach the bottomless hole. There is no need to reduce speed now.
*facepalm* for that kind of attitude - I hope you do not work like this in real life.

[Texugo87]

I've been thinking about this as well, and once state-rewind comes into effect for missiles it should be possible to make streaks work the way they are intended to, which is not fire unless atleast a missile (i think) will hit (probably have to give it a bit of a fudge factor), based on actual enemy location, speed, and heading. Lag could be an issue though as you would lead the target to where you think you would hit it and click fire, you client initiates the state rewind mechanic (tells server where you are, asks where enemy is, server asks enemy where you are, server tells you where enemy is) presumably that mechnic gives you location speed and heading (or atleast can), server calculates whether there would have been any hits, then tells both clients, if there would have been animation plays, you expend ammo, enemy takes damage. That is a lot of transactions between server and both clients. Enemy could potentially have a chance to evade missiles at long distances, though they would have to be fast and it would have to be a marginal hit in the first place, AMS works as normal.

Another idea I had, particularly with the big streak launchers, you be to have 1 missile operate as streaks currently do, and have the remainder follow that missile with a set spread. For example if that one missile decides to home on the left shoulder, out of an srm 6 1 missile likely goes high, a couple go too far left, 1 other hits the shoulder, and the last hits the left torso. If the homing missile goes for CT, then they probably all hit but are spread out. I don't particularly like this mechanic as it's still chance based, where as the original intention of streaks were for them to be heat and ammo conservative, not 100% hit rate, just not fire if it won't hit.

[Tuoweit]

Zyllos, on 18 February 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

You know, I think someone else' suggestion to make SSRMs like CBT was a good idea. I will try and explain their idea:

When an SSRM launcher is fired, a laser is shot out to 270m.

For every 0.5s that laser is on the target, a single SSRM is fired out of the launcher.

The lockon location is 100% based on where the laser was aimed during the firing of the SSRM.

The SSRM will have a specific turning radius and speed (which is a bit higher speed but shorter turning radius than now).

What this will do is that if the SSRM launcher does not have a clear target with the laser pointer, it will never fire an SSRM, thus no ammo is wasted. This will also reduce the amount of damage with SSRMs overall, unless the pilot is skilled.

SSRMs will still fire under ECM, but will not home on the laser pointed target (basically makes them dumb fired SSRMs).

That wouldn't work at all - lasers are instant weapons, but you need to lead a fair bit with SRMs. In your setup, the missiles would consistently miss a (tangentially) moving target at range, because the laser was on the target while you really needed to be aiming your missiles ahead of the target.

[Cache]

cjmurphy87, on 18 February 2013 - 01:39 PM, said:

I've been thinking about this as well, and once state-rewind comes into effect for missiles it should be possible to make streaks work the way they are intended to, which is not fire unless atleast a missile (i think) will hit (probably have to give it a bit of a fudge factor), based on actual enemy location, speed, and heading.

That is not how they are intended to work. The launcher gets a lock, the missiles fire and auto-track. No launcher lock-on, no fire. Period.

[Uncle Totty]

Zyllos, on 18 February 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

You know, I think someone else' suggestion to make SSRMs like CBT was a good idea. I will try and explain their idea:

When an SSRM launcher is fired, a laser is shot out to 270m.

For every 0.5s that laser is on the target, a single SSRM is fired out of the launcher.

The lockon location is 100% based on where the laser was aimed during the firing of the SSRM.

The SSRM will have a specific turning radius and speed (which is a bit higher speed but shorter turning radius than now).

What this will do is that if the SSRM launcher does not have a clear target with the laser pointer, it will never fire an SSRM, thus no ammo is wasted. This will also reduce the amount of damage with SSRMs overall, unless the pilot is skilled.

SSRMs will still fire under ECM, but will not home on the laser pointed target (basically makes them dumb fired SSRMs).

Aren't streaks fire-and-forget?

[Signal27]

SuomiWarder, on 18 February 2013 - 12:21 PM, said:

With Clan mechs coming, many of which have multiple Streak Launchers of greater than 2 missiles, things are going to get very ECM reliant.

In the original rules streaks didn't fire on a missed die roll. They were not weapons that always hit. As the game engine has to determine if a hit would occur anyway (as it does for an SRM launch), why can't streaks work the same way? If your aim point would result in a miss when you fire, nothing happens. If it hit would have been recorded the missiles launch and hit.

Six Streak 6 Timberwolves with lasers to back them up are going to cause much nashing of teeth and whining of OPness.

We still have no idea how the devs are going to balance Clan tech VS Inner Sphere tech. For all we know, Clan stat lines will be nothing like the original tabletop game.

[Kyone Akashi]

Nathan K, on 18 February 2013 - 01:41 PM, said:

Aren't streaks fire-and-forget?

From what I've read, the sources are not entirely clear and/or somewhat contradictory on how Streak SRMs work in detail. Some books make it sound as if it was a normal SRM launcher that simply refuses to fire unless the targeting computer predicts a 100% hit chance, whereas others mention the SSRMs being more bulky and more expensive than normal SRMs because they pack advanced guidance equipment. Era Report 3052, for example, mentions that Streak SRMs work by homing in on a targeting laser.

I have a feeling that these slight contradictions could hint at the writers essentially having retconned the system over the years, moving away from the original description in very small steps.

Edited by Kyone Akashi, 18 February 2013 - 01:52 PM.

[Texugo87]

I'm not very up on my TT rules (i played it once a long time ago), but my understanding was you did your to hit rolls, and if you didn't get a hit, the launcher didn't fire(didn't expend ammo, didn't generate heat). Not that you skipped the hit roll entirely.

Maybe where we are getting crossed is if all missiles always hit, or if partial hits were allowed.

Edited by cjmurphy87, 18 February 2013 - 02:01 PM.

[Chou Senwan]

LRMs: When you fire, they go in a straight line for 180 meters (in the direction your launcher is pointing, so Catapults can aim upward to go over hills). Only after 180 meters do they start curving and tracking.

Streak SRMs: When you fire, they go in a straight line for 30 meters before they start curving and tracking.

Alternately, Streak SRMs could just fire in a straight line, and if they come within 30 meters of ANY mech, they curve and home into that mech.