i agree that the LRM boats need to be nerfed from MW4, but i think taking out the lock-on system is a little much.  it would be nice if both were available but with the lock-on system having a bit of a different problem being similar to radar guided missiles in real life... ECM.  For those who don't know, ECM causes major guidance problems for any missile trying to keep a lock on a target and sometimes causes the missile to either look for a different target and stray off course or just give up and drop out of the sky or explode on the spot in hopes that they're close enough to the target to do some damage.

in short, i think ECM should cause some of the missiles to stray off course depending on the distance and the amount of ECM overlapping in the area.  (although I'm pretty sure this would cause the programmers hell to try to implement, although simpler methods of implementing it would probably do the trick) i think it would work to nerf the missile boats without changing things too drastically.  although this may also necessitate different levels of ECM packages for more specialized mechs (raven etc.), with some being better for jamming missiles, and others being better for jamming sensors with a little bit of overlap. 

Question, why doesn't ECM already affect missiles in the BTech universe?

ECM [Electronic Counter-Measures] and AMS [Anti-Missile System] when combined together in Classic Battletech, basically completely nullify any serious threat missiles can pose. Essentially, the ECM causes fewer missiles to hit, and the AMS destroys most of those that would hit, leaving only a couple to make it through.

ECM doesn't work against Streak's though. Which will hit no matter what once they're locked on.

Oh, I thought they just only fired when they were sure to hit.

yes those countermeasures do exist, but their effectiveness isn't quite up to 50-60% unless you're only getting shot at with a single LRM5 or LRM10 .  LAMS does help a bit but not very much and missiles once they've been locked on and fired at something never miss unless the pilot firing them takes their aim off of the target.  I've been playing MW4 recently to just get up to speed on this and LAMS doesn't seem do very much to help.  I get hit by a lot of missiles and whenever they lock on there isn't much of a way to make them miss.  My suggestion is more along the lines of leaving LAMS in and making ECM screw with the missile's own accuracy making it veer off course more then normal.  This would make its effectiveness proportional to the number of missiles actually coming at you.  The missile behavior under the affect of ECM could be further modified to make them lose their lock completely at reestablish it on something/someone else (regardless of friend or foe).  Any missile coming within LAMS's range would be shot at regardless of if it was accurately targeting the mech or not thus mildly reducing the effectiveness of having both of them at the same time.

LOL!

I think the problem was less that, than the fact that LRMs were so universal, there was no reason to ever take short or medium. Bluntly put, LRM boats should be vicious at long range, and rather sad at medium, and useless at short.

I think you're going to like how we're treating LRM's then.

in mech2 they didnt have ATM's they only had sSRM's and LRM's

however sSRM's would annihilate you at close range (as they should)

LRM's would not lock on under a set range 500m i think ? dunno been long time since i played it
but you could still fire them dumb fire and they would just launch straight

quite often half the missiles would not explode but just disappear
but many of them would still explode , sometimes you would get lucky and all your missiles would detonate

but it was not a weapon you could rely on in close range

but at long range... oh baby and the Timber Wolf has 2x cLRM20 in stock
and people wonder why it is such a fierce mech

in the MW:LL team took the same compromise as the MW2 team id be happy
i think it makes sense to to neuter the weapon completely in short range
but to make it very ineffective works well i think