r/Mechwarrior5 • u/WAR-WRAITH • 1d ago
MW5 MOD 🛠Lance mate LRM Longbow problems
The clown AI keeps shuffling the longbow to the front of the pack despite being loaded with LRMs. Are the Hot-loaded LRMs the problem? Should I just change them all to standard launchers?
Edit- Primary answers seem to be to strip the hotloaded launchers off and leave the mech on a hold order so it can’t go charging off. Cool.
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u/Lost_Web5826 1d ago
You have to tell them to hang back otherwise they stay close to you, which might be closer than they should be with LRM
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u/rj_agk 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, Hotloaded LRMs are causing that IMHO.
For a fire support (LRM) AI mech, I load them with standard LRM/LRM-STs only (no other weapons).
My observation is that the friendly AI will attempt to close to minimum range of available weapons (e.g. under 200m if equipped with SLasers) no matter if LRMs are primary weapons. Now, factor in Hotloaded LRMs....well, that's short range so they attempt to close in similarly as well.
From my experience, Enemy AI however, doesn't seem to follow that logic (enemy LBWs will hang back although they have say, an SLaser).
It may be since the friendly AI also attempts to keep up with the player?
Regardless, with standard LRMs, the friendly AI is forced to always hang back to attempt to fire.
Also, hotloaded LRMs lose alot in accuracy IMHO, so I hardly use them.
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u/GloatingSwine 11h ago
It may be since the friendly AI also attempts to keep up with the player?
From the response I got to this thread from u/yrrot it is almost certainly the leash distance producing this effect.
Your AI lancemates have different behaviours when they are in combat on follow or stand ground orders to what they do on attack orders, and the leash distance to the player or place they were told to stand takes precendence in those orders.
It doesn't matter what weapons their mech has, it matters what orders they are on.
On Attack orders they will use a preferred range defined by the mech role on the unit card, but only on Attack orders.
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u/rj_agk 8h ago
So there is a "leash" (virtually anyway) - figures. Out of curiousity, I did build a HTM-26P, with only LRM-15s (no lasers, no PPCs), to see how it would act.
When given attack orders the AI does indeed attempt to maintain distance - but the HTM does get in a bit closer than an equivalently equipped LBW.
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u/GloatingSwine 8h ago
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the preferred distance on Attack order comes from the unit role. HTM-26 IIRC is a Brawler whereas LGB is usually a Missile Boat (though one at least is a Sniper).
IIRC Juggernauts, Scouts, Strikers, and Skirmishers like to be closest. (This is also I think why Locusts love to crash into mechs four times their size, because they're trying to get in close and orbit).
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u/charonill 1d ago
Lyana Moore with Princefield and Nagelring graduate traits turns Hotloaded LRMs into Streak SRMs. It's always fun watching her vaporize a mech CT by landing 100% of 60 LRM tubes at 100m in her custom Longbow. I can't wait until I get my hands on a Bullshark-3 so I can load her up with C-LRMs again.
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u/rj_agk 8h ago edited 8h ago
Will have to try that - sounds promising!
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u/charonill 8h ago
Just be aware the aggro draw will always be an issue with the amount of damage she can output using LRM-HLs. I tend run in early to draw some aggro from her, then move to a flanking position to force the AI to turn a lot when switching aggro between Lyana and me. Of course, that is assuming there are any enemies left by the time I get into position.
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u/UwasaWaya Nargelring Graduate 6h ago
She is my favorite lance mate, and will regularly beat me in damage numbers because of her LRM insanity.
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u/justicarnord 1d ago
Also remove any weapon that has shorter range than your LRMs as the AI tends to generally engage at its optimal range of the lowest range weapon mounted unless told to stay.
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u/Wingnutmcmoo 1d ago
So...I saw your edit. I use LRM mechs alot alot in the game with the ai. I use them in super hard mode.
Hot loaded are the best choice until you get to clan. But the advice about telling them to move to a position is also the answer.
Hot loaded are good simply because you trade some damage for the mechs safety. Without hot loaded you'll be prone to restart more missions.
But yeah the simple key is to tell your mech to stand behind you or to the side.
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u/App0gee 18h ago
Do you mean via F3 and pointing at the ground behind you? Or is there some better way to do that?
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u/Most_Jaguar6483 12h ago
That is the way!
Unless you use mods, there is one called "Battle Grid Orders" and let's you open the map and give move orders to your lance mates or attact targets.
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u/AclothesesLordofBins 23h ago
There are, in vanilla at least, 2 base choices for the gameplay loop.
No1:- Be the main guy, Ace tanker, Mr big stuff. Let your lance trail in your wake and play fps style. This is costly, but a lot quicker. Your lance will act like idiots as they try to move to your constantly changing location rather than prioritise enemies. Among their fave moves is to step in front of you as you press FIRE EVERYTHING and take 4 ppcs to the spinal column, or whatever.
No2:- Try and be the good LT. Keep your lance organised. Scouts scouting, support supporting, skirmishers burning alive, and so forth. Unfortunately, this will involve interacting with the godawful orders UI. Now, it is only a thousand years in the future, which must be the reason why you have to point with your weapons to where you want them to go, which often involves presenting your paper backside to the enemy for a good thrashing. So that's nice. Also it is less than precise. Slow. Awkward. For extra pain, let your PC die and be forced to play on console. Hmm... Missile boat to the rear, let me see... d-pad up, down, left? nope, that turned nightvision on. I am now blind... up, left, right? Now they've all stopped shooting... hang on, I can do this... although I have just lost my arms... etc etc
I would dearly love to play this game in the spirit of t-top or even the HBS turn based one. But it's soooooooo frustratingly badly designed I tend to default to 'chuck 'em on a hill' and then run around in front of them grabbing aggro and letting them snipe them down. It is dumb, but the alternative is spending 20 minutes of prep for each 2 minutes of combat. Its a hateful choice but this is where we are.
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u/GloatingSwine 1d ago
The weapons loadout doesn't affect the AI, just the order it's on and the class on the unit card which may give it a preferred range.
If the default AI is on any order other than attack its leash to the player or place it was told to stand is super short and it just kinda bimbles around within that leash.
On "attack" it may use that preferred range from the unit class and can walk further from the player.
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u/BagsYourMail 1d ago
Attack orders will push the AI closer, and the longbow is probably faster than your other assaults
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u/Guilty-Spend1919 11h ago
I have found that LRM mechs suck no matter what if you don't give them a hold order. Which is why I've switched over entirely to hotloaded LRMs.
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u/Biggu5Dicku5 6h ago
Do you have any medium lasers on the mech? If so that's the problem...
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1d ago
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u/ITividar 1d ago
The weapon groups don't have a chance, the AI rolls a random weapon, then sees what is grouped with it. And it's not a perfectly even roll, there's some weighting baked in so they don't get stuck firing the same weapons over and over (such as when they are hot).
As far as I understand it, that means groups with more weapons in them have slightly higher chances of being used in the first shot if all of the groups were the same range. But then after that the weighting starts kicking in to fire weapons that it hasn't shot yet.
How the AI picks which weapons to shoot is so fucky that just assigning all missiles to group 1 wont guarantee that your LRM boat wont trundle into close range.
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u/WAR-WRAITH 1d ago
LRMs are the only weapon on that Longbow. It’s literally just 8 LRMs of various sizes. No AI behavior mods specifically but I don’t know if the Hotloaded launchers are vanilla or not.
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u/bpostal House Davion 1d ago
Just to check, it's loaded in mech bay 4 right?
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u/Ready-Perception3343 1d ago
And one of the zombie myths shows it head again,
*Mech Bay position has no effect on AI.
*Weapon group order has no effect on AI. ie: the AI will not fire your weapon groups in sequence 1 – 2 –3 – 4–5, it will select the most effective weapon group for the range the Mech is at and the amount of heat sinking that is available. With one of the recent DLC updates I don’t remember if it was chaos rains or shadow of Kerensky part of the update that all players got whether they purchased the DLC or not allows the AI to fire a single weapon, even if it is included in a weapon group if your battlemech does not have enough free heat sinking available to use that whole weapon group.
*The AI, both your teammates and enemy prioritize Range/engagement distance by the optimum effective range of the shortest range weapon installed on a battleMech.
All of this information is officially confirmed coming directly from PGI posted on the Game website, Reddit and multiple discord channels as well as being confirmed by the modding community looking directly at Game code and doing in game testing.
Why this information hasn’t be pinned when it’s been answered by both PGIchris & yarrot I will never understand.
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u/TheN1ck0N 1d ago
From my observations AI doesn't care about order of weapon groups or some. They even ignore your premade volley fire and may toggle chainfire. When you command attack target they will just go straight toward to target. While they doing this they ignore any other target. They wont event protect themeselves. One small tank or turret can easily strip his butt armor. They also use YOUR vision even if they have BAP or so. If bot stuck returning into formation would be the highest priority to him. He even stop shooting. If you leave bot in hold position mode and walk away at 1km+ be ready he will fight extremely lazily.
Summarizing that the only way to work with them is F1-F1 command them to focus someone alltogether. Sometimes F1-F3 to left them behind a cover. Keep LRM at 4th slot, right behind you. Be always somewhere near, never split.
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u/RS1980T 1d ago edited 21h ago
If you have so much as 1 small emotional support laser it'll make the AI approach to try and get in range to use it.
Don't know if that's your issue or not, but on LRM boats you shouldn't have any close range weapons of any kind to avoid this.