Talk to me about... Teleoperated Capital Missiles

[Terrace]

My experience with this variant of Capital Missiles has left me skeptical of its utility. It's hard to use in MegaMek, and I've noticed that they weigh a flat ten tons more than their standard counterparts. And you're stuck using this variant if you want access to the most powerful non-nuke Capital Missile in the game (which doesn't have a nuke version anyway, so loading up a White Shark launcher with Santa Ana missiles will easily outstrip the Kraken-T).

I could accept Teleoperated Capital Missiles as a stop-gap solution that gets phased out as the Inner Sphere recovered the ability to produce Star League-type guidance packages, but it's so difficult to actually hit something I'm wondering if it's worth the trade-off to consider it a commonly used variant in the Jihad and beyond.

Is there any real advantage to them?

[UnLimiTeD]

I think the point is the ability to try again, should you miss.
Also, if I remember right, you can draft excess gunners from weapon systems currently unused to control extra missiles, and then attack in a swarm. Whyever you would do that against multifire AMS.

[Terrace]

I think the point is the ability to try again, should you miss.
Also, if I remember right, you can draft excess gunners from weapon systems currently unused to control extra missiles, and then attack in a swarm. Whyever you would do that against multifire AMS.

My annoyance comes from how they're portrayed on MegaMek, where you have to accelerate the missile manually and use the ramming rules (which tacks a hefty to-hit penalty on top of your gunnery score, depending on how far the missile needs to travel), plus limited fuel severely restricting how many attempts you actually get per missile.

[Weirdo]

The trick is to plan your attack to span multiple turns. You spend the thrust to get to the target's general vicinity in one turn, and the next turn you only need to spend a few thrust points to get on the target, sometimeseven being able to simply coast onto it.

Best T-Missile shot I ever saw was launched from halfway across the map in a convention fight. The attacker gave no indication who he was shooting at, as it was a large fight with lots of WarShips, nobody was paying much attention to a Nekohono'o loitering in the backfield. He lined up his shot, and at the end of the missile's movement, he blew almost all of the fuel in a single burn, getting it up to speed 25 or so. Next turn rolls around, and when the time comes, the missile flight zooms across the map right into the hex of a Baron. Didn't have to spend a  single thrust point in the actual attack run and the to-hit was practically automatic. Barons do NOT like triple Kraken salvos.

[magnusmd]

Manually guided telemissiles are pretty situational...
I never use them because the damage output per turn is so drastically reduced by the low speed and multi-turn travel time needed to hit a target. Now, that said...

In Megamek, if you fire a Teleoperated missile launcher in 'normal' mode, it works just like a Star League missile launcher - 50 hex range, hits in 1 turn.

Where Telemissiles shine is when you turn on bearings-only launch and waypoint launch modes and use advanced sensors rules from SO on a big (250x250+ hex or so) map. When you launch a bearings-only missile at a target hex, you get to choose the velocity (up to 50). You can set up large time-on-target barrages that way to overload point defenses, assuming your target isn't moving so fast that it escapes the missiles' search radius before they arrive.
Also, if there are targets in the search radius, the player gets to choose the target if there are several. Star League missiles pick one for you.

I hope this helps.