EHHHHH LONG TOMS?

[(TLL)BlueOrb]

Had some success with fast attack mecs. Warning here...do not attempt to use the Uller B to attack the Long Tom. The AC10 has so little damage effect to the LT that its useless. (about 3 damage per salvo).  Rumors that the LT is lightly armored are false. Its a tank (apparently like the Demolisher) with an artillery piece mounted on it. The best effect was had by Flamers and SSRMS. (go figure)

I have some questions:
1. Does the shell/projectile track in any way?
2. Can the Long Tom shell/projectile lock an asset?
3. Is there any way to tell if a Long Tom is targeting you? (besides the effect)

In addition to this: I would like to see the Long Tom roll out with a limited number of shells of a type.

1. 2 Armor Piercing rounds.
2. 1 Anti Personell round.  Less damage to mechs.
3. 1 Inferno round.
Ammo bought after this would be in tons of whats listed above. Another neat addition woud be an aerial or AA round. Maybe a fireworks round.


I have little hope that this advice will be heeded but for the good of the MWLL mod I urge you the developers to limit the range of the Long Tom to 3/4 of the distance to any base and make the maps bigger. My reasons are this:
IMO the game is now solely playable by hardcore Mechwarrior fans. Any new person who enters the game in nearly any theatre will be blasted out of apparently nowhere, repawn, be blasted again by someone chuckleing about noobs, rinse and repeat 2 more times if your lucky, and leave to uninstall the game. This will dash our hopes of a much bigger community and thus the success of the mod.
Sincerely yours,
BlueOrb

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

I agree with some of what has been said about the Tom's.  Some good solutions too, such as

*reduce shots per ton
*having to lockdown before firing
*decrease in some damage areas

On the R/P/S idea, yes air assets should be a counter to artillery.  Just like the last release, give it time.  ASF/VTOL pilots need to get used to the controls again.  To help along the idea, FBombs should have a wider blast damage radius (with some damage reduction to help balance it) to help combat Toms and AA clustering together.

The Toms makes me question the usefulness of the slower mechs, (ie heavy and up).  They're easily countered by artillery and just don't have the speed to flank.  That being said, I've started seeing these slow assault mechs being posted on guard duty for the Toms where they easily destroyed any lighter/faster flanking units.

On the issue of being killed by friendly artillery, yes it's a pain but as was mentioned before, if you play online FPS you're gonna always have that risk.

Just remember, this is not the full game and things WILL change.  When we get VTOL APCs everything will change again, and when the mechlabs come, even more change.  Keep an open mind and keep discussing ideas, that's the whole point of beta.

[Temphage]

Don't forget the idiotic teamkill potential. As I said, I'm about 1:1 on teamkills for Long Toms. If someone in a Long Tom hits my Thanatos and blows off an arm and a leg, something actually worthwhile should happen to them, not just 'oh my score went down a bit' and 'oh, I lost some money'. You get the money back when you die, and most Long Tom pilots have oodles of cash. No really, the guy who teamkilled me? He funded my Thanatos when I joined. I asked for cash and he gave me 160k.

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

Yeah true enough, there should be auto Rank down + huge reduction in cash for team kills + more expensive ammo for Toms.  This mechanic would effectively force them out of toms and into other units to get their cash back.

if they mistakenly killed a teammate, then they could ask for donation to get more funds.  If they did it deliberately or repeatedly, then no one is gonna give them money.

[Friedrich Psitalon]

This would also have the effect of encouraging people to close and battle more, to shield themselves from hostile fire. After all, if you're hugging close to an enemy, that enemy Longtom isn't going to want to dump a shell that might hit BOTH of you.

Beneficial side effect: This could also have the same effect on curtailing missile spamming from the back ranks - I've used the "step behind an enemy when you can see missiles coming in" trick before to have someone accidentally hit a teammate in the back of the head. Doesn't do much to penalize the shooter, but tends to make my fight easier as well as seriously disorient the poor schlub who ate the missiles.

[BraylonCWM]

hehe omg you guys are crying like a bunch of babies over something that dies so easy.i've both used the longtoms and played against them and found that they enhanced the game more than detracted from it. they certainly discourage the sitting around and poptarting bullshit that plagued the previous release. i cannot tell you how many times i loaded into a match and found both sides sitting 400m from each other behind terrain popping up and launching slavos and not engaging in the brawl....LAME! that's not mechwarrior that's whack-a-mole, go to chuckiecheese if you want to play that shit. the introduction of the LT A) introduces a reason to actively work together as a team and hunt the other team...at least now you have a reason to unite and work together instead of standing around like a bunch of hens talking about the weather. Objective based gameplay, hunt that fapper with the big gun before he wipes us all out for sitting still in a mech game with our thumbs up our asses.  B) the  LT does require a bit of finesse; it's slow it, it has limited tracking ability, it is dependent on teammates for defense, it does have paper thin armor, a couple of salvos from lrms is enough to bail me out of one cause it's going to pop soon. If you were getting owned by a group using LTs it was probably more a function of them being more organized and coordinated while using all of their available assets than the LT being overpowered.  Get a clue, work together, that's what this game is designed for...DUH! and one more thing on people getting all pissed about not being able to tell when it's coming...IT'S ARTILLERY BITCH!  You don't get a warning in real life when artillery hits until the shells start impacting the ground. you are not supposed to know when it's coming...i mean it's a giant glowing projectile falling from the sky...you can see it coming from 1500m away what more do you want? quit your bitching and work together, this is by far the least game breaking and immersion breaking feature of the mod thus far. I like it, it's fun, it's not something i'd do all the time, but yea leave this as it is....the times i did not die in my LT from the opposing LT hitting me it was from some damned sneaky pilot in a light or medium that got me dead to rights while i wasn't paying attention or my teammates were distracted...wow, all this bitching over artillery....spend less time whining here and more time in the game PLAYING! it's not like it's damn fully equipped BAs ejecting out of mechs or anything gezzzz

L2P NUBS!

[Stahlseele]

Autokick on friendly fire would take care of long toms RIGHT QUICK.

[=KoS=Zeus]

Ok, so LT kill ground assets, Aircraft take out LTs, and now AAA take out aircraft. Nice little R/P/S set up there.

Now for what I believe is the crux question burning in the back of everyone's minds. Where the hell do the mechs and tanks fit into this matrix?

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

Tanks and mechs kill AA and artillery (when they get close enough)

[Friedrich Psitalon]

Autokick on friendly fire would take care of long toms RIGHT QUICK.

I'm really hoping this is a humorous remark. The unintended consequences of this boggle the mind.

[Temphage]

Ok, so LT kill ground assets, Aircraft take out LTs, and now AAA take out aircraft. Nice little R/P/S set up there.

Now for what I believe is the crux question burning in the back of everyone's minds. Where the hell do the mechs and tanks fit into this matrix?

Found myself thinking the same thing. Rock/Paper/Scissors is a horrible method for balance. Mechs are either getting owned from the skies or owned from 1.5KM away. It's not even worth the time it takes to get one out of the hangar, since the game apparently has suddenly turned into instagib unreal tournament on the ground.

[ratbuddy]

Did some more testing on the tom today. I was able to sit 1500 meters from the enemy base, on the other side of the mountain on Clearcut, dropping shells right on/in the hangar. When they hit the roof, apparently the blast even goes through the ceiling and kills anyone in the ready room. Bases definitely need some kind of protection from the shells, because if a team of idiots decide to abuse this, the game will be flat-out unplayable. Spawn, die. Spawn, die. Spawn, die, quit.

I'm starting the think the only thing the tom needs for proper balance is a much smaller splash radius. Direct hits should be devastating, but a 20 meter near-miss shouldn't be taking half the armor off an assault, or going through a base ceiling.

[Friedrich Psitalon]

That much I can definitely agree with - if TOMshells are killing through a ceiling, THAT is a problem bordering on unplayable.

(Though I'd repeat that an APC moved to a secure location early in the game, and done quietly, would still be a counter to that.)

[Temphage]

Direct hits shouldn't be devastating either. For one, you can still park the fapping thing on a hill.

The Long Tom is supposed to be a deterrent against grouping up, something that is not a problem anyway. If it were a utility weapon, something you can call on for fire support, that'd be one thing, but it doesn't lay down artillery barrage. It just instantly vaporizes the enemy in one big ass shell.

Look, I don't know about you, but I've suddenly become acutely aware that mechs, the most armored things in the BTU next to dropships, have become fragile as glass. Every time anyone says anything in the defense of mechs, all the fanboys here leap up, point crooked gnarled fingers and begin the banshee scream "YOU JUST WANT MECHS TO BE SUPERPOWEREDDD GO BACK TO MECHWARRRRIIORRRRRRRR FAG". Mechs should *NOT* be one-shot killed by *anything*. They carry upwards of 10,000 pounds of solid fapping armor. You can't just blow through that like it's nothing. You know what? fapp it. Mechs *are* supposed to be kings of the battlefield, otherwise, surprise, BTU wouldn't have the stupid things. Battletech, like it or not, is still about mechs first and foremost. Tanks, Aeros, VTOLs, and whatever the fapp else have always been secondary players.

The counter to mechs is, and always has been, other mechs. Why the fapp is everything in the game designed to DESTROY mechs now? As if constant artillery of 5 different varieties, VTOLs carrying anti-ship missiles, aircraft dropping vacuum bombs, and battle armor crawling all over heavy and assault mechs wasn't enough. Hell, let's finish it completely and put in a Capital Missile system too.

[Redvan]

aero maneuverability is great now, only problem is I cant get my rudder controls bound to my keyboard from the options menu, so I have to use the actionmaps file.  But the actionmaps file has rudder as the mouse X axis?  wtf so comfuzored.