missile lock woes

[gsummers]

I am having a very hard time getting a missile lock and am wondering if I just don't understand the mechanic. Essentially, when someone is red (in range) within my target arc circle, or whatever its called, I hold down my right mouse button. A missile lock starts. However, I find that VERY frequently the missile lock "locking on" gets interrupted even though I am holding the right mouse button down the entire time.

 

I understand if you lose your "locking on" progress if your target darts behind an obstacle, or goes out of range. But I am finding that even if they are red and within my center circle the entire time, sometimes for no apparent reason, the locking on stops, and I need to release the mouse button and try again.

 

Is the locking on only based on where the target is forecast to be (the leading circle coming out of their ship), or where they actually are (actual picture of ship on your screen)? Can ships break the progress of a lock without leaving range or moving behind obstacle? Is it possible that my right mouse button just has some commitment issues and I should ditch it for a mouse that is ready to commit to sending an uninterrupted signal when I hold the right mouse button down:p?

 

PS-the missile that this is the worst for me is the cluster missile. I'm trying to master my T1 strike for achievement and even though I have completely upgraded cluster missile, it is SO painful trying not lose a lock that I am considering switching to proton torpedo.

[RickDagles]

The red circle actually has nothing to do with the missile. The red circle only indicates that you are in range with your blasters. Read up on the range of your missile and try to stay within that range. It helps to set up your blasters and missiles with similar ranges. I would recommend one of the following for beginners:

 

Heavy Laser Cannon (with range capacitors) with Concussion Missiles - With a few upgrades these heavy lasers will have a range of 6900m and the concussions will start at 7000. Eventually you can get an upgrade to make the concussions 7700m but that still works well. When you are just starting out it's better to have the missile range a bit longer than the blaster range.

 

Quad Laser Cannon with Cluster Missiles - With 2 upgrades your quads will have a range of 5300m and the clusters will have a range of 5000. This isn't 100% optimal but just be aware of the difference. Once you get the tier 4 upgrade on the cluster missiles then they have a range of 5500m and it works perfectly. I personally recommend using range on cluster missiles, especially for newer players. Use damage capacitors on your quads rather than range capacitors.

 

 

I should also mention that Scouts and Gunships have access to a shield component called Distortion Field that lets them break a missile lock without even performing an engine move. This is partly what you might be experiencing. If that happens just stay in range and start locking another missile after a few seconds.

 

 

Cluster missiles are by far the best missile in the game. Proton torpedos are very difficult to land on anyone and they require a lot of skill. You either have to fire them point blank on an enemy or be very aware of your surroundings and shoot them after a Strikefighter has already used his missile break (retro thruster is the easiest one to notice). I say Strikefighter because Scouts and Gunships will usually be able to break 2 missiles in a row with the aforementioned DF upgrade. That being said, newer players without these upgrades can be good targets. And they're pretty easy to land on bombers, but you will have to land at least 3 of them to get a kill unless you got a red orb damage overcharge pickup.

Edited March 13, 2015 by RickDagles

[gsummers]

Good information here, thanks. One question: If you are in the process of getting a missile lock and your target pops distortion field, does that interrupt the lock acquisition, or does the missile break with DF only work once a missile has been fired?

[havokhead]

It most definitely interrupts your missile lock in addition to the evade bonus

[Ashkanie]

DF breaks locks the same way as engines do (both locking and already flying missiles). It doesn't make you immune to locks for some seconds like the engine lockbreaks, but that's the only difference.

 

As far as target indicators are concerned, there are two of them: The moving circle which shows where you should aim your lasers (and turns red if you are in LASER range) and 4 small triangles pointing at the enemy ship itself. Those are for secondary weapons and turn red when the target is in range of your missiles, railgun or whatever it is. Missile locking depends only on this indicator. If it leaves the circle in the center of the screen (normally the smaller one if there are two), your lock will break.

[havokhead]

It most definitely interrupts your missile lock in addition to the evade bonus

[tunewalker]

The third possible is, of course lag. With a small reticule sometimes it will LOOK like you have them dead center but the game will see it differently. Its kind of a known issue that cant really be solved, as it's more a problem with small reticules and the game engine.

[Zharik]

Distortion Field has an option (that everyone takes) to break missile locks on activation... Most engines have a maneuver that breaks a lock as well (and prevents re-locking for the duration of the maneuver). Learn to see the buff on your target for DF and know what the engine maneuvers look like so you know where they are heading.

 

LOS and range are the other two things that commonly (made worse by lag, and some cheaters force lag on their side to make missiles nearly impossible to lock) make locks hard.

 

I might be forgetting something else (EMP Field?) that can stop them too. But that is a lot more rare of a choice anyway.

[Nemarus]

One thing to remember about missiles--the attempt to lock on someone--even if the missile never hits them--is useful.

 

Making someone burn Distortion Field on a Cluster Missile means they won't have it when they try to win a joust or dodge a torpedo or Seeker Mine.

 

Making someone burn an engine ability to dodge a missile means they have to stop what they are doing--whether it's attacking an ally or staying close to a node.

 

Sometimes, especially with non-upgraded Cluster Missiles, forcing someone to dodge the missile has more of a consequence than if the missile had actually hit.

[Ramalina]

Yeah, EMP can interrupt the lock on process, but doesn't cause a missile that has already fired to loose its lock.

[jmonka]

Yeah, EMP can interrupt the lock on process, but doesn't cause a missile that has already fired to loose its lock.

 

Actually, while the EMP pulse tooltip makes it sound like it only prevents locks, it is in reality a missile break just like Distortion Field is -well a missile break with a 40 second cooldown... but I do run a couple of toons with 3 missile breaks on their T1 scout for kicks.

 

-I do not know if this is perhaps a bug, but it's been like this since 3.0 at least when I started messing around with it and I just tested it again 2 minutes ago to be sure it hadn't changed in Thursday's patch and it did indeed break a missile lock once the missile was in the air.

 

That being said, I have not ever been able to test if it also breaks locks for allies in range if the missile is in the air (I don't use VOIP yet) so it might be worth testing that but I can confirm it breaks locks for the user regardless of if the missile is already in the air or not.

[Verain]

I think anything that breaks missiles will interrupt a launched missile and also cancel the locking procedure. The tooltips imply that some only do one of those things, but I think everything does both.

[gsummers]

Noticed something odd the other day while getting a proton torpedo lock. Target was out in the open, moving slowly, at about 7K range. Put him in the center of my target window (smaller circle) and press the right mouse button.

 

Target lock starts, I get two beeps while red triangles close in around target...

After two beeps, suddenly target lock resets, red triangles go back to original position and start closing in again

After two beeps again, suddenly target lock resets, red triangles go back to original position and start closing in again

Finally this time, the target lock does not reset and I am able to hold it long enough to get the lock and launch the torpedo.

 

Target remained well inside range and window whole time.

 

Does this sound like an ability or a glitch?

[Ryuku-sama]

Noticed something odd the other day while getting a proton torpedo lock. Target was out in the open, moving slowly, at about 7K range. Put him in the center of my target window (smaller circle) and press the right mouse button.

 

Target lock starts, I get two beeps while red triangles close in around target...

After two beeps, suddenly target lock resets, red triangles go back to original position and start closing in again

After two beeps again, suddenly target lock resets, red triangles go back to original position and start closing in again

Finally this time, the target lock does not reset and I am able to hold it long enough to get the lock and launch the torpedo.

 

Target remained well inside range and window whole time.

 

Does this sound like an ability or a glitch?

 

Did you have to click again after these resets??? If not, it's likely latency and glitchy stuff on your side. If you had, Disto can do that... Only once tho.

[jmonka]

Did you have to click again after these resets??? If not, it's likely latency and glitchy stuff on your side. If you had, Disto can do that... Only once tho.

 

Well, assuming it was not simply latency, the second missile break could be accounted for with EMP Pulse (Assuming the target was a Novadive/Blackbolt).

Granted EMP Pulse is more noticeable than Distortion Field thanks to the weird soupy electric animation EMP has, but at 7k distance the soup could have been missed -especially if the target was against the right bit of background or the shooter was distracted watching his chat, the minimap, etc that most pilots will be to one degree or another.

[Ryuku-sama]

Well, assuming it was not simply latency, the second missile break could be accounted for with EMP Pulse (Assuming the target was a Novadive/Blackbolt).

Granted EMP Pulse is more noticeable than Distortion Field thanks to the weird soupy electric animation EMP has, but at 7k distance the soup could have been missed -especially if the target was against the right bit of background or the shooter was distracted watching his chat, the minimap, etc that most pilots will be to one degree or another.

 

EMP pulse grants a lock immunity. Disto doesn't.

[jmonka]

EMP pulse grants a lock immunity. Disto doesn't.

 

Yeah, I wasn't sure from gsummer's post if the lock broke and instantly began locking again both times (in which case EMP definitely would not explain it) or if it simply broke twice and he was able to begin locking a few seconds later in which case EMP could be the cause (unless I'm missing something obvious?)

[gsummers]

I think your first intuition is correct. I held the mouse button down the entire time and the lock just kept resetting. I happened again tonight, so I think it may just be glitch/not fast enough processor/lag or something that is making it hard to make a missile lock.

[Drakkolich]

I think your first intuition is correct. I held the mouse button down the entire time and the lock just kept resetting. I happened again tonight, so I think it may just be glitch/not fast enough processor/lag or something that is making it hard to make a missile lock.

 

Honestly if your holding down right click the entire time and it keeps resetting that really sounds like a mouse problem more then anything. I have a friend that had this exact problem only it was with charging his railgun on his Gunship, it just kept resetting and telling him he didn't have enough charge and it was totally just his left click acting up.

 

Maybe just run the tutorial and see if you can chain lock missiles on the turrets, just to see if it's a mouse problem.

[Archonitek]

I think your first intuition is correct. I held the mouse button down the entire time and the lock just kept resetting. I happened again tonight, so I think it may just be glitch/not fast enough processor/lag or something that is making it hard to make a missile lock.

 

Could also be ping. In Australia 250ms is the best I can get and sometimes when I hold down rail or missile it doesn't seem to register, so I'll realise and try again only for it to charge/lock as soon as i release the button. With rail gun it usually means a shot going way off target and with lock it'll just reset so it becomes this frustrating game of *press*...nothing...*release*...PEW...****!...*press*...nothing...*release*...PEW...****!