Just me or SRM completely suboptimal?

[Whiskiz]

If you want damage - go lasers and AC that spreads the damage *much* less. drills through armor and components much, much better.

If you want stab dmg close range, go big ACs.

If you want to be able to fire while being more than just face to face with a mech - dont go SRMS still (on top of the above drawbacks)

If you want to sandblast armor, or go for an armor destruction high score - go SRM.

Sure there's component crits, but is that really worth sacrificing the ability to punch straight through mechs with 50dmg - 100dmg single component hits? Instead of doing almost no damage to anything in paticular.

You're spending much needed turns looking for crits, knockdowns and pilot injury salvage scum, while mid - late game enemy mechs start piling in.

So missiles seem really weak, am i missing something? Lucky LRM has such long range and indirect fire, what do SRMS have?

In MWO this is balanced because you have to actually aim, so there was no guarantee of laser and AC dmg hitting single components, but here i.e an ac/20 is 100 dmg on a single component when it hits, guaranteed. And is decent range.

I have an ac/20 and a med laser or 2 on my main 2 frontline mechs, with SRM just to fill the gaps, that have mostly missile hardpoints and not so much ac/lazer hardpoints (hello centurion), and im trying hard to find an excuse not to slap an ac20 on my 3rd front mech and run basically the same setup with all 3 at the front.

Halp.

(And if it wasn't ac/20 specifically, it'd be other ac and lazers in general.)

P.S Long range missiles are great - a Centurion with a PPC, LRM20 and 2 tons of ammo ftw, but SRM not so much imo.

 

[FearFTW]

SRM's are way better weight/damage ratio then AC's specially once you get +++ with +4 dmg and +2 stab dmg.

 

[Fallenkezef]

Head hits and ammo crits.

A big boomstick to open the can, missles to salvage it.

 

[Huntingwolf]

LRMs are the worst i would say.you need a ton to do damage

they spred like a shotgun and do Nearly no damage (exept knocking the enemy over if you fire them in a big swarm )an produce heat like the sun

SRM´s should deal Normal more damge .do the lack of a guidence system in many cases and a bigger warhead lorewise

But ok i like more AC´s,Gausscannons and Big lazors and PPC´s on my MECH´s...

 

[FearFTW]

LRMs are the worst i would say.you need a ton to do damage

they spred like a shotgun and do Nearly no damage (exept knocking the enemy over if you fire them in a big swarm )an produce heat like the sun

SRM´s should deal Normal more damge .do the lack of a guidence system in many cases and a bigger warhead lorewise

But ok i like more AC´s,Gausscannons and Big lazors and PPC´s on my MECH´s...

How much alpha your big lazor and PPC mechs have and most importantly how many times they can alpha before overheating?

 

[SpeedKatMcNasty]

Far more damage/stability/ammo per ton/heat. Higher Crit chance. No minimum range unlike several AC types.

Far less reliant on RNGesus. What happens when you miss twice in a row with your AC/20? You effectively did nothing with your last two turns. That wont happen with a SRM.

 

[Whiskiz]

SRM's are way better weight/damage ratio then AC's specially once you get +++ with +4 dmg and +2 stab dmg.

Maybe once you get +dmg because it adds that dmg to each missile right? According to the info screen - i wonder if that's even intended or not because that's a big, odd, advantage over other upgraded weapons.

Apart from that though, considering the fact that most of the time that the better weight/dmg ratio is spread out onto 3 - 5 components, while on paper is better, it isn't nearly in practice.

Far more damage/stability/ammo per ton/heat. Higher Crit chance. No minimum range unlike several AC types.

Far less reliant on RNGesus. What happens when you miss twice in a row with your AC/20? You effectively did nothing with your last two turns. That wont happen with a SRM.

At 70% - 85% accuracy i rarely miss at all, let alone ever twice in a row. I must say, shot rng and % chance to hit in this is *much* more accurately represented than xcom, thank god.

sandblasting every single round with SRM could be argued a waste of a turn, when in context of comparison to what big single component attacks can do.

While there is no minimum range on SRM - they are also not effective unless you are at minimum range with SRM. And when you're at minimum range with SRM, you can be flanked, meleed, death from aboved, etc.

 

[Huntingwolf]

How much alpha your big lazor and PPC mechs have and most importantly how many times they can alpha before overheating?

and how mutch Missles would go trough if the mechs had antimisslesytems in game ? *ugly*

but for the question :it's enough to knock out another mech

 

[Rusky]

SRMs are a BEAST. Having the ability to sandpaper the enemy armor and destabilize them at once, if not outright kill them, is a VERY powerful tool.
The Weapons that you described are better for getting those final kill shots in. But for starting the fight, its better to go with LRM and SRM, wear down the armor and what not as well as knock the enemy down possibly, then have your glass cannon fire away at the weakest points with the weapons you mentioned.

SRMs are also good for giving you a higher chance to hit the head and injure the pilot, which mixed with some other crit and a knock down, can take them out of the fight right there and then without destroying the Mech.

 

[Luminis]

LRMs are the worst i would say.you need a ton to do damage

they spred like a shotgun and do Nearly no damage (exept knocking the enemy over if you fire them in a big swarm )an produce heat like the sun

SRM´s should deal Normal more damge .do the lack of a guidence system in many cases and a bigger warhead lorewise

But ok i like more AC´s,Gausscannons and Big lazors and PPC´s on my MECH´s...

LRMs (and SRM, for that matter) have the advantage of not missing an unarmoured location completely as often, though. Plus, their tonnage efficiency is pretty crazy and indirect fire + huge range is just EZ mode in general.

Another big factor, in my opinion: Later in the game, you start battles with (almost) 50 Morale and get access to boosted Morale gain; and with high enough tactics, you have an 80%+ chance of hitting the CT on a Precision Strike, so your LRM carriers can easily knock out lighter enemies in a single salvo. Have something fast with lots of armour up front to spot and tank and rain death. EZ mode, I tells ya.

 

[Ac0lyte]

Use them in combination. Take a few hole punchers - weapons that deal lots of damage to one location - and then add in the crit seekers. The idea is that missiles are far more likely to hit those nice orange sections that your PPC's or AC's make and do critical damage to the components there. When that component is ammo, it's particularly effective.

Other than that stability damage, headshot chance and removing evasion pips are all good uses for missiles in general, SRM's in particular.

- Shane

 

[KDubya]

SRMs have these benefits:

• Light weight - A SRM 6 only weighs 3 tons and does 6x8= 48 damage. I've gotten +versions that add +2 damage for 6x10 for 60 damage
• Better hit chance - a laser or AC either hits or misses, a SRM6 is pretty much guaranteed to get at least two hits
• Crit seeking - each individual missile gets a chance at a critical hit
• Head Hunting - each individual missile gets a chance at a head strike. Unlike LRMs which roll one time for a head strike per launcher, SRMs roll per missile.
• Sometimes all you have are missile hardpoints and you want to make a brawler. Take a Shadowhawk 2D and add one SRM6 and two SRM4, two tons of SRM ammo , add three medium lasers, add two small lasers, five jump jets and max as much armor as you can. You get a nimble well armored medium range terror with a 187 damage mid range, 227 damage short range and a melee attack of 125 that cools you down. Use an evasive master tactician and you have 5-6 pips and act in the light phase.

 

[ScAB]

I like missiles. But feel it's a case of quantity is its own quality. Using 3 x srm 6 on a centurion at the moment and it's surprisingly effective. Lrms feel the minimum volume for effect is batteries of 20+, but that might just be me!

 

[FearFTW]

and how mutch Missles would go trough if the mechs had antimisslesytems in game ? *ugly*

Well i was asking about current game state.
LRM20 with +2dmg is 120 damage per salvo for measly 18 heat and there is currently nothing in game that comes even close to that.
Tho you should pair those LRM's (i prefer +stab dmg ones) with AC10 or gauss for added effect

 

[Ac0lyte]

Well i was asking about current game state.
LRM20 with +2dmg is 120 damage per salvo for measly 18 heat and there is currently nothing in game that comes even close to that.
Tho you should pair those LRM's with AC10 or gauss for added effect

My AC20++ that does +20 damage (120 total, to one location) begs to differ.

It's my new "OUCH" gun.

- Shane

 

[holtb80]

I run two of these Shadow Hawks

https://gyazo.com/a0c61b2934286f4803ac2f07e425e4cd

Up armored pushy front line shredders. This particular one I stripped a jump jet for a heat since because I am heading to a moon. My other looks just like it.

I have a Jagermech with LRM 20++ LRM15x2 that can get a lil warm on mars like planets but it had jump jets to hop over hills if needed, so I could get a heat sink or two in if I needed.

My 4th mech is usually a Dragon with AC20++ 2 ammo and 2ML, Behemoth is usually in this cleaning up from a distance or punching when I bring her in close to clean up.

My last mission I had 2 out of 4 Hunchbacks knocked down for every round. Just kept rotating the knock downs until they all went down.


tldr:SRM spam is great, don't use a couple SRM, use a lot of them.

 

[FearFTW]

My AC20++ that does +20 damage (120 total, to one location) begs to differ.

It's my new "OUCH" gun.

- Shane

By time your AC20 gets into range you are missing it
AC's actually are good but these large energy weapons are complete garbage.

 

[Whiskiz]

So SRM pros are:
-light weight
-good for equipment crits
-high stab dmg/knockdowns
-good for pilot injuries
-synergizes oddly better with +dmg/stab upgrades (it seems to apply additively, to each missile)
(not counting better chance to hit, because while some of your attack may hit, when a single target hits the entire thing hits - it evens it out. Chance to hit is chance to hit, no added benefit in the long term if the rolls are lots of little ones or less bigger ones, it's all psychological)

cons are:
-only close range (goodluck doing anything in open maps and other situations)
-leaves you open to flanks, melees and death from above
-spreads the damage almost making it non existant
-does little to the mech until the armor is blown off, even then only mainly rolls on equipment crits

So it may be great for salvage scum, knockdowns and make more use of upgrades - but leaves you able to do little in the open, little in many other situations, leaves you open to alot of nastiness when you are close enough to use, does little to get through armor, does little to actually kill anything and does little else in general.

I guess it does have it's special uses, but when the enemy heavies/assaults/death vehicles start piling up mid/late game - is the salvage scum, individual knockdowns and crit seeking going to be worth all that?

 

[Luminis]

AC's actually are good but these large energy weapons are complete garbage.

Usually, yes, but I found that a PPC and a Gauss go very well together.

... until I replaced the PPC with more missiles, which works even better

 

[Ac0lyte]

By time your AC20 gets into range you are missing it
AC's actually are good but these large energy weapons are complete garbage.

SRM's have the same range as the AC20. I know, because I put them on the same 'Mech. Hole puncher + crit seeker galore.

- Shane