Missile Lock Breaks

[Svarthrafn]

I've been playing way too long to be asking such a stupid question but here it goes:

 

What ways are there to break missile locks?

 

Distortion Field

Maneuvers

 

...and what else?

 

I use missiles a lot. Usually from extreme range. I watched one scout break every single lock attempt I made for the entire match. No distortion effect, and no maneuver used (he had retros, so it was easy to tell when he did). He would be well within the arc, not moving too much within it (as I said, extreme range), and the locking would just end and I would have to start over again.

 

Nobody was jumping around anywhere, and he never neared the edge of the missile arc, so it doesn't seem like a latency issue.

 

Must be L2P, so what am I missing here?

[btbarrett]

T4 of EMP field can also break missile locks.

[DakhathKilrathi]

The most likely issue is the range. SWTOR is a little weird about tracking position, and if you're trying to lock on at the very edge of the missile's range, you'll see this happen. It also depends on the type of missile you're using, too. Thermites have always seemed really bad about dropping locks for no apparent reason.

 

Edit: Also note that you don't always see icons on enemy ships. You usually do, but it's not reliable.

Edited September 10, 2015 by DakhathKilrathi

[Svarthrafn]

T4 of EMP field can also break missile locks.

 

Don't think flashfire has that. This dude was solo.

 

I wasn't edge of range, had a good 1-2 km of wiggle room most times.

 

I WAS using thermite though. Was unaware that there is an issue.

Edited September 10, 2015 by Svarthrafn

[DakhathKilrathi]

I WAS using thermite though. Was unaware that there is an issue.

 

I'm not positive of this as I haven't done a lot of testing with it, but I'm reasonably certain that the firing arc for thermites is smaller than the screen indicates. Try to keep targets as close to center as possible to minimize the dropped locks you see with it.

 

Edit: And I'm apparently not the only one who thinks so: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=768844

Edited September 10, 2015 by DakhathKilrathi

[Danalon]

From my experience it's mostly a connection issue. Depending on your connection and the connection of your target your firing range appears shorter as it is. Even if your connection is good you should be 500m closer to the target than the maximum range of your missile is. I'm from EU and when I play on a US west coast server I sometimes need to stay 1500m closer to my target. The way the game checks the distance between two ships is the reason for this. While you see your target in range, it might already have been out of range for just a split second which interrupts the lockon. The same thing applies to your firing arc. Your firing arc for missiles is always smaller than displayed on the screen. Even if a target is inside the arc all the time form your point of view it might have been slightly outside from the servers point of view.

 

Another problem of torpedos is the long lockon time. You need to hold your mouse button down all the time and if it happens extremely often that you lose a lock there might be a problem with your mouse button. Maybe there is a loose connection which interrupts the signal from your mouse button sometimes when you move the mouse. Or maybe, in combat your finger shakes a little, just enough to not be noticed by you, but by your mouse.

 

If the lockon problems happen just with one specific target, maybe that target has a poor connection. If you have the impression that person is cheating (which is extremely unlikely) you can write a ticket. In thousands of games I've played I only wrote a ticket once after I watched someone having very weird "lags" over three games.

 

For anyone who cares here's why I wrote that ticket:

 

Whenever he targeted me while I targeted him he teleported just outside my (blaster) firing arc. As soon as he was outside he flew normally, I followed him around while he was outside the arc and it was ok. As soon as he was inside he teleported again. The distance between us didn't matter, once I targeted him from 40km away (visible via comm range) and watched him tabbing through my team. As soon as he tabbed to me, he teleported because I looked in his direction while havin him targeted. He was easy to shoot down while he targeted someone else but impossible to shoot while he targeted me.

I included in my ticket that I can't be sure if it's really cheating or just extremely weird lag. I never saw that character in GSF again, however according to his achievements he seems to be good at ground PvP, which is extremely weird for someone with such extreme lags.

 

Edited September 10, 2015 by Danalon

[Gavin_Kelvar]

I'm not positive of this as I haven't done a lot of testing with it, but I'm reasonably certain that the firing arc for thermites is smaller than the screen indicates. Try to keep targets as close to center as possible to minimize the dropped locks you see with it.

 

Edit: And I'm apparently not the only one who thinks so: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=768844

 

I dunno about it being smaller but I've found using all of the firing arc upgrades makes the missile noticeably more reliable. One reason I've long advocated torps having a base firing arc of 16, 12 seems balanced in theory but in practice just leads to too many ninja lock losses.

[tunewalker]

Was he boosting at high speeds even if you were keeping him within your arc?

 

Sometimes the game seems to screw up on locks this way, and thinks lead reticle instead of ship local, or at least it appears to sometimes for me, either way this is just one of the many missile issues in the game. And honestly even if you didnt have phantom lock losts (yes we have named them, they are that common) you likely would not have hit the scout with a thermite, he should just disto or engine break it pretty easy, hell he could just save his engines for it and never disto it and the reload time + the lock time is still longer then his engine Maneuver's cooldown.

[Drakkolich]

Keeping targets at the center of your arc is actually not what you want to do to land long lock on missiles. You actually want to put them near the edge of the arc opposite to the direction he's flying.

 

Examples: Your target is trying to evade the lock on by flying Left, so what you want to do is keep the target between the center of your arc and the Right side of it. Basically at about 3/4's of the entire arc.

 

Using this technique on fast moving targets will help stop locks that break because client side they weren't actually in the arc even though on your screen it showed they were.

 

Always remember that where you are seeing your target and where they actually are is 2 different locations. However only AoE's and Missile locks are affected by this. Lasers all calculate hits based on what you see and it doesn't matter where they actually are.

 

 

I hope that helps everyone with their missile lock ons.

[sartt]

I've been playing way too long to be asking such a stupid question but here it goes:

 

What ways are there to break missile locks?

 

Distortion Field

Maneuvers

 

...and what else?

 

I use missiles a lot. Usually from extreme range. I watched one scout break every single lock attempt I made for the entire match. No distortion effect, and no maneuver used (he had retros, so it was easy to tell when he did). He would be well within the arc, not moving too much within it (as I said, extreme range), and the locking would just end and I would have to start over again.

 

Nobody was jumping around anywhere, and he never neared the edge of the missile arc, so it doesn't seem like a latency issue.

 

Must be L2P, so what am I missing here?

If the lock breaks for no reason, that person is lagging. I've seen it happen before, i have proton missiles with increased missile arc some how lock breaks for no reason. on people i've confirmed at not U.S players.

[Telos]

i'm starting to think it's a thermite torpedo bug... when i was using them in my bloodmark, targets would drop lock all the time, just flying. no abilities used.

 

but its gsf. its the most fun thing to do in tor, and its the most bugged and least attended by BW.