How do you counter missile spam?

[TwoTonTuna]

Relative nooblet here. What can you do to counter enemy missile spam, especially the multiple missile launchers? Here's what I try to do to mitigate damage:

1) hide behind tall terrain/buildings. not always reliable, as some missiles curve above the top and around the sides.
2) Dash right when they're about to hit. Hard to time it right, guided missiles just follow you anyway.
3) Raise shield. This is what I see as the most reliable method, but shields don't last forever. Also a pain to time right.

[Chicago Ted]

hit the launchers with your axe.

[RTBear]

Dash is very reliable, raise shield is not that great imo, hiding behind tall things is reliable. Really the best counter is to target down the missile launcher enemies as fast as possible. Part of the game is making judgement calls like "ok this guy is gonna take damage and that's fine" as long as you make the best use of that sacrifice.

[ZiggyDeath]

Most missiles have similar travel times. For the majority of missiles the range it can cover in 5 seconds is 120-150m.

[Mr. Galaxywide]

Dash when they are relatively close. Missiles still gonna travel in general direction of your mech but their tracking capabilities will be severely reduced. And as someone else said, high cover.

If your mech don't have dash, then run in direction of missiles when they are close. This will work if trajectory is high, some launchers have really low arc. Your rip then.

[Phobos]

ragequit a mission with 3 multi missile tanks/mechs. my 3 mechs all died in two turns trying to fight in an open forest. weird difficulty spike as soon as more than one enemy has them.

[NerazarPC]

Originally posted by Phobos:

ragequit a mission with 3 multi missile tanks/mechs. my 3 mechs all died in two turns trying to fight in an open forest. weird difficulty spike as soon as more than one enemy has them.

Yep, that difficulty spike is really something. I think I will change the difficulty level just for that.

[Gremlin]

Dash and pray is pretty much my only solution which has been working far more then not. My basic rule of thumb is if its the opening volley/long range, dash 3 seconds after they start firing. I either time it right to dodge all or a majority of the missiles or it was a big fatty missile that's going to hit next round so dash again.

Closer range, bob and weave and dash towards them (Not into their face) so their high trajectory crashes them into the ground behind you. Its best to run one direction then dash the opposite.

[verarticus]

If you have fast units being targeted, just running can work a decent amount of the time. Dashing can sometimes work, shield I find to be pretty mediocre for missiles aside from letting you move more freely while blocking the other gunfire at you. Frankly you can't reliably avoid a missile barrage in its entirety with any sort of reliability.

Missiles are overpowered (acknowledged by the devs) are need to be nerfed. I'm not sure how many of the total maps I've seen, but honestly all of the maps I HAVE seen provide 0 cover to counter missile spam. I get that they're suppose to arc to shoot over cover, but that shouldn't be a counter to ALL cover on HOMING missiles with so much RNG to their pathing that you can't do much about them.

[Wendigo Boogaloo]

My main way of fighting the horrors of missiles is three things, the most important is Dash. Dashing at the right opportunity (I'll usually give it half to a full second after the launch to dash depending on the range) can save your Mechs life.

The second will have to be counter-battery, have 1 mech with your own missile or sniper, if you want to try a more direct assault, the missile battery with this mech running back and forth in the back while throwing missile after missile can whittle their own mech/tank into the ground though the sniper can concuss many tanks with two shots depending on the sniper and mechs can be similar if paired with a close range railgun to the throat.

Lastly would have to be smacking those bastards with as much close-quarters damage or Vulcan fire as you can, because having an A-10 Warthog's gattling as a personal weapon to slam into a mechs face usually helps lol. Now I 100% am not perfect at this game, especially with my close quarters mech because that poor warrior will almost always be concussed by the end of the fight, but they'd also kill 2 to 3 targets in the fight so might be a worth it trade off

[TwoTonTuna]

Okay, so to sum up strats:

1) Dash *into* top-down missiles to mess up their tracking; dash sideways to avoid direct-fire missiles;
2) Dash approximately 3 seconds after a long-range volley is fired (>100 meterss); 2 seconds after a medium-range volley (50-100 meters); 1 second after a short-range volley (<50 meters)
3) If possible, hide behind cliffs/tall buildings against direct-fire/low-arc missiles
4) Get a flanker close to exposed launchers to mess-up their targeting priorities; melee them in the face if possible
5) assign a counter-battery mech to whittle down launchers keeping their distance

[McFuzz]

Right now the easiest thing is to just focus down the missile units. I have a minigunner who aims; it's very long range, and usually enough to take them out in one or two turns.

[ExavierMacbeth]

Originally posted by Kodesh:

Okay, so to sum up strats:

1) Dash *into* top-down missiles to mess up their tracking; dash sideways to avoid direct-fire missiles;
2) Dash approximately 3 seconds after a long-range volley is fired (>100 meterss); 2 seconds after a medium-range volley (50-100 meters); 1 second after a short-range volley (<50 meters)
3) If possible, hide behind cliffs/tall buildings against direct-fire/low-arc missiles
4) Get a flanker close to exposed launchers to mess-up their targeting priorities; melee them in the face if possible
5) assign a counter-battery mech to whittle down launchers keeping their distance

Notes:
1) Look at the units ahead of time... I have found that MLS tends to be guided & ML tend to be unguided with AoEs. Tends to affect dash decisions in my case.
2) Take timings with a grain of salt. I have seen missiles with accelerator modules on them making them faster than others.
3) This also works wonders at long range with top down missiles because their arc starts flattening out. Getting solid objects in the way of any guided missile is best strategy... can hurt if its an unguided rocket bomb though.
...
I would like to add one...
6) Carry an Unguided Launcher on one of your mechs... When setting the target hold down control (like they teach you for targetting buildings) and bomb the ground where the target will be. If you can time it right you can even splash multiple units as they manuver near eachother :P

[roy2x]

I try not to give myself a headache when trying to fight against missiles so I just take note if someone has fired them. If next turn I see it almost hitting my mechs then I dash. Having mechs that can dash often and long distances is great for this. If they fire the missiles while close by to their target then I just dash approximately the end of my turn. If your mechs dont have dash then you are probably need to prioritize getting upper body that can support it.

[TwoTonTuna]

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

6) Carry an Unguided Launcher on one of your mechs... When setting the target hold down control (like they teach you for targetting buildings) and bomb the ground where the target will be. If you can time it right you can even splash multiple units as they manuver near eachother :P

Just a quick clarification: if you target an unguided missile at an enemy unit, will the missile a) target the current location of the enemy or b) target where the enemy will be when the missile lands?

[Kiro]

Yeah, they already said they overcompensated when they buffed missiles, and plan on nerfing them a bit again. They apparently used to really underperform. I think one of the plans is to make them more rare, so you don't get lots of missile enemies per combat.