EHHHHH LONG TOMS?

[MaverickOriginal]

I would like to see:

LT deploy to fire.
LT range increased to be able to fire beyond 1500m
LT damage GREATly decreased
LT AoE radius significantly increased

If your score from last night was from LTA's then this man knows what hes talking about haha 56-1 had me boggled.

No mystery to me.
 
1. park Long Tom within 1200m of an enemy base
2. shell enemy base and let splash damage penetrate the hangar to kill newly spawned players
3. rinse, repeat
 
Cheap as hell, and although we don't have a mechanic in to prevent it right now, I'm fairly sure TLL are banning players if they are seen doing this.  So, use at your own risk.

I'm sorry you feel this way KingLeerUK. Your assumption is false and your accusations noted. I participate in Teamspeak with TLL members on a nearly nightly basis on the TLL servers.

While what you describe would be painfully annoying, might ruin the game experience for the victims, and such activity would be highly discouraged on the TLL servers in a very public way before a kick or ban, this tactic was not used to gain that score.

Quite simply 2(or3) CERLBL against a BA in mid air accounted for atleast 35 of those kills.

[Storm490]

One option for limiting base shelling by LTOM is to have AMS Turrets around hanger that knock out LTOMS.  You will run into issues if someone is trying to kill a mech running to base, but it seems the good outweigh the bad. Just my .02$

[=KoS= Eldragon]

I'm sorry you feel this way KingLeerUK. Your assumption is false and your accusations noted. I participate in Teamspeak with TLL members on a nearly nightly basis on the TLL servers.

While what you describe would be painfully annoying, might ruin the game experience for the victims, and such activity would be highly discouraged on the TLL servers in a very public way before a kick or ban, this tactic was not used to gain that score.

Quite simply 2(or3) CERLBL against a BA in mid air accounted for atleast 35 of those kills.

I've seen MavOrig get crazy scores like this on several occasions, as both the victim and the teammate. Its not from long toms. Its intelligent use of the Cougar, and sniping BA with the Large Laser.

Are there people abusing long toms? Yes, there is no doubt about that and it will eventually be addressed.

[Haunted]

I finally got down to really try the long tom.
Yhea it's a bit powerfull. And the hill driving has to be some how limited.
But i have noticed a really nice change in battles:

The number of mechs going passive has increased A LOT. And if battles start to be trench warfare.... a long comes a LT or two.... no more trenches meaning both teams start chargeing the other teams long toms (and they are pretty easy to take out, but yes a bit less amor is still needed).
And if there are no trenches... have fun trying to hit anything with the LT.
The only thing you can hit (hill parking aside) are stationary active mechs (aka missile spammer or jump sniper). Or assaults lumbering active towards the battle. And those deserve it.
All in all.... LT are a great addition to the battlfield.

[^sPikE-]

I finally got down to really try the long tom.
Yhea it's a bit powerfull. And the hill driving has to be some how limited.
But i have noticed a really nice change in battles:

The number of mechs going passive has increased A LOT. And if battles start to be trench warfare.... a long comes a LT or two.... no more trenches meaning both teams start chargeing the other teams long toms (and they are pretty easy to take out, but yes a bit less amor is still needed).
And if there are no trenches... have fun trying to hit anything with the LT.
The only thing you can hit (hill parking aside) are stationary active mechs (aka missile spammer or jump sniper). Or assaults lumbering active towards the battle. And those deserve it.
All in all.... LT are a great addition to the battlfield.

qft. +1

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

Yep - that's all true. The LTs made MWLL what it's suppose to be instead of LRM-campers-war as it was back in 0.1.0, and for that we should be thankful.

So other than decreasing armor of LTs by a bit - I'm against any major changes to lower it's efficiency.
What I miss though is switchable ammunition - to cluster bullets which spread over larger area while not having any splash damage, and perhaps the napalm-bullets with minimal damage but huge heat.

One option for limiting base shelling by LTOM is to have AMS Turrets around hanger that knock out LTOMS.  You will run into issues if someone is trying to kill a mech running to base, but it seems the good outweigh the bad. Just my .02$

AMS aren't suppose to destroy the LT bullets. It's Anti-Missile System.

[stuibb]

Can't say I've had much luck trying to take on LTs at close range even if I get the jump on 'em.

Every time I try I usually take a shell to the face and thats that...
Usually can't even do significant damage to their armour in that time with a madcat unloading multiple alphastrikes (so no idea how some people are one / two shooting them with light mechs)

I'm all for raising the minimum gun angle so shooting at close range really does become impossible. Also reducing the turret twist and slowing the traverse rate down would be helpfull in this regard.

Let it be death incarnate to groups of mechs milling around downrange, but that should come at the expense of being a sitting duck at close range.

Though that being said, on the aussie servers I frequent (play as Squibby) LTs aren't really all the rage, and thankfully are fairly un-common.

[Colonel Drego]

Honestly as long as you have acompetent pilot(s) on your team long toms can become a non issue, provided aeros are available. In a single round of sandblasted on the TLL Texas server I destroyed no less than 20 Long Toms with my Shiva C, barely giving them enough time to roll out of the hangar and get off a couple shots. However, once someone decided to start hating the sky and everything in it with a single RAC2 partisan, pretty much the entire enemy side of the map was shut down to my bombing runs. Sure, I MIGHT get off a bomb drop but I wasnt making it out alive. Ground support was obviously incapable of dealing with the one partisan considering if I wasn't flying around, Long Toms were destroying everything.

So, as previously stated, if aeros can make it through the absurdly powerful AAA, the Long Toms wreak significantly less havoc. They should not be on maps without air vehicles, however.

[Nitro_R]

Honestly as long as you have acompetent pilot(s) on your team long toms can become a non issue, provided aeros are available. In a single round of sandblasted on the TLL Texas server I destroyed no less than 20 Long Toms with my Shiva C, barely giving them enough time to roll out of the hangar and get off a couple shots. However, once someone decided to start hating the sky and everything in it with a single RAC2 partisan, pretty much the entire enemy side of the map was shut down to my bombing runs. Sure, I MIGHT get off a bomb drop but I wasnt making it out alive. Ground support was obviously incapable of dealing with the one partisan considering if I wasn't flying around, Long Toms were destroying everything.

So, as previously stated, if aeros can make it through the absurdly powerful AAA, the Long Toms wreak significantly less havoc. They should not be on maps without air vehicles, however.

Agreed, even the Sulla Prime can do some decent damage on Longtoms if there is no AA.
However, I agree with (TLL)Sky_Walker that armor should be nerfed a bit on them.

I always try to take out AA if my team has flyers.
If you have trouble bombing, try to get your teammates to take them out with light mechs, or at least harass them so they are aimed on the ground and not in the air.  Then, if you're a bomber, you can go in and bomb away.

[Evgen]

Long Tommy is a great addition to the game. It counters Missile campers and teaches heavy mech fans to use passive radar.
Recon mechs like Raven have more meaning now.

Several suggestions to Long Tom:

1. To make turret rotation a bit slowly.
2. To give engine a bit more power in order to handle hills easier. I got stuck several times between small hills or trees and Had to suicide.
3. Apart of turret view possibility of free view (holding X button and much faster then turret view) so you can use zoom and make correction to the trajectory without moving turret.
4. Differnt type of shells. Fire-shells, smoke shells.
5. Possibility to buy and deploy smoke cover-up around Long Tom.

[knuddel-wuddel]

Im also for increasing minimum vertical angle for long toms as well as turret rotation speed.

I got killed 2 times in a row by a LT at 300m as i tried to kill it with my Osiris B (~162 km/h with masc at that time)

After 5 or so hits with the AC20 its Armor was @65-70%, so i just dont know, which light mech to use do one-hit a LT ...

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

The armor thing is a known problem, as far as the 300m thing is concerned it's really a function of the crazy amount of splash damage it can do.  I'd like to see the min range raised to 500m.  It doesn't solve all the problems as a good Tom driver can just park on a decline to get a level trajectory though

[(TLL)Siilk]

  It doesn't solve all the problems as a good Tom driver can just park on a decline to get a level trajectory though

 This could be addressed by introducing necessity of having flat, uninclined surface under LT for it to be able to deploy. And yes, devs stated, that deployment before shooting would be implemented.

[=KoS= Eldragon]

Since we know the LT is going to be getting some changes its a little futile to really kvetch about them now. But there is one issue that probably won't be fixed anytime soon, and I really hate the LT for it:

Since we got the Long Tom, few bother with Tag/Narc ArrowIV missiles anymore. It used to be where using TAG/NARC and ArrowIV was some serious teamwork and those points were well earned. Now you can do the same thing with the Long Tom on your own, and be FAR more effective. So I hope the LT changes so it does some kind of inaccurate artillery barrage rather than the perfectly accurate single mega-shot that kills anything it hits.

Right now you can really do some jerk moves with the LT, so it needs to change. Once I parked the LT in such a position where I could fire on the enemy hangar bay with impunity. Most of the other team quit shortly afterwards. Another time I parked just outside my own hangar and fired on anything that moved, any time an Aero showed up on radar I just backed it into the hangar where no one could touch me. More than a little cheap. Felt pretty dirty. So I don't use them anymore. I'm a little surprised I don't see more people pulling that crap. I can only hope there are more players like me who feel dirty doing it.

[(TLL) Zeh]

I feel kinda silly about my knee-jerk reaction after just reading peoples' posts now.  The Longtom has had a positive influence in the game, IMO.  Yes it's overpowered, it should not be able to defend itself.  But before the LT was added, every noob and his brother ran around full-time with active radar.  This made noob-hunting very easy, but it resulted in less team engagements, as the one team using passive radar and teamwork just ran roughshod over everything else.  Now at least, most people stay passive a good portion of the time, and I've seen it result it many more decent skirmishes.