19 replies to this topic

[Garrond]

Hi folks!

So far I've played quite some matches and have already unlocked adv.sensor range 2/2 and adv. target decay 2/2. If you had another 15k GXP, what would you unlock next?

Thanks in advance,
- Garry

[Lynx7725]

Garrond, on 25 February 2013 - 09:24 AM, said:

Hi folks! So far I've played quite some matches and have already unlocked adv.sensor range 2/2 and adv. target decay 2/2. If you had another 15k GXP, what would you unlock next? Thanks in advance, - Garry

Depends on your playstyle. I'll go with Cap Accelerator, or 360 Target.

[Golfin Man]

I have the advanced vision (fairly dumb) which is 5k gxp and the cap accelerator which is 15k gxp. I was hesitant to buy it because I couldn't imagine every future game type having some opportunity of capturing something, but it's nice to have it in conquest or for base races/making peole think twice about not playing defense.

[Garrond]

I really like the thought of having a better zoom but people tell me that the zoom module is still kind of buggy. I'll guess it's cap accellerator then.

The 360 target sounds very interesting but i'm not sure on how it works in detail. Could someone explain please?

[xterix]

Not sure if its just me but the cap accelerator feels kinda slow recently. Anyone else feeling the same?

[Sagranda]

360°
Adv. Target Decay
Adv. Sensor Range
Target Info Gathering

the only real good modules

[Splinters]

360 is probably the most useful one across all mechs. For assaults you can track that light running behind you. For lights you can track a target to make a jump-turn (if JJ equipped) for a semi-focused shot.

After that it depends on your role. Adv. Target Decay and Capture are the two I tend to keep. But I swap out Capture for Adv Sensor Range if in a slow mech (<80kph).

Zoom is near useless and as many have stated, don't recommend getting that one till the very end. In fact I still haven't gotten it and have saved up 15k in GXP for the future module unlocking instead.

-S

[EvilTwinTepe]

Garrond, on 25 February 2013 - 09:42 AM, said:

The 360 target sounds very interesting but i'm not sure on how it works in detail. Could someone explain please?

Say you're jaunting around the map, clearly minding your own business, and suddenly a Jenner jerk runs up and you lock onto it on radar - to say "Hi," and make friendly-like of course. Before you can even wave and say "Ho, fellow traveller!" he is blasting you with lasers before he dips behind you - breaking your lock.

Well, with the 360 target retention, you'll know just where he is behind you for a few seconds (5 or so??) so you can turn around and try to explain you don't mean him any harm, and ask him to stop firing upon you.

[Goose]

People keep telling me 360º does something, but I've never seen it. Seems to involve looking down at the mini-map when you should be watching where you're going and/ or shooting.

Sensors and Info are the stand-bys: The sooner you sort out which chessepult is which …

[Lynx7725]

Goose, on 25 February 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

People keep telling me 360º does something, but I've never seen it. Seems to involve looking down at the mini-map when you should be watching where you're going and/ or shooting. Sensors and Info are the stand-bys: The sooner you sort out which chessepult is which …

When you lock on to a target and it cuts back behind you outside of your frontal view, you will lose the lock (unless someone else nearby has a lock on him, in which case you are using your teammate's lock to keep him targeted).

Obviously, this is great for brawlers who target, as the brawl creates a swirling situation where both parties can get into each other's blind spot. It's also good for scouts who wants to keep locks while running around avoiding fire. It's also good for fast Streak platforms, though not so much for LRM boats.

Obviously, if you are a Brawler who doesn't bother to target, it's not going to be very useful.

[knight-of-ni]

For light mechs, the 360 module is useful to tell if that other light mech has given chase.
That allows you to take appropriate measures before they start firing at you. As long as there is no other object between you and him, you will maintain lock indefinitely.

What I think I've noticed about Target Decay is that it lets me see where that enemy mech is going after it leaves my sight. That is useful to anticipate which direction the mech went and to head him off at the pass so to speak.

I use Adv. Sensor Range in all my mechs. Simply knowing where your enemy is, is very important. According to the patch notes, this module gives a larger window of opportunity to lock onto an ECM cloaked mech. I don't use SSRM's or LRM's however so I cannot test this. Has anyone else?

[Lynx7725]

knnniggett, on 26 February 2013 - 05:18 AM, said:

According to the patch notes, this module gives a larger window of opportunity to lock onto an ECM cloaked mech. I don't use SSRM's or LRM's however so I cannot test this. Has anyone else?

Doesn't matter if it works or not, it's just not very useful practically. Just consider:

If the ECM is coming at you, he's going to cross the zone real quick to close (because the lights would want to do cha-cha with you in close).

If the ECM is heading away from you, he's going to get out of the zone real quick (so the ECM cloak kicks in again and he can't be targeted).

The only time it is useful is if you somehow can keep him in that narrow band, which is really difficult. Or if the ECM is on an Atlas, which rapidly becomes a non-issue because every PPC that can fire at the Atlas is likely to be firing at it anyway.

[StonedDead]

I use advanced sensor range and target info gathering modules. Helps to pick up on non ecm mechs a little sooner and gives me target info faster so I can sort out who is the bigger threat, hopefully before they get close. I keep a cap accelerator for backup. Zoom is ok, kinda, it's not all that great. It can give you a rough outline of a mech which is more than enough to target it but works better with heat vision. Skip it if you have better modules.

[knight-of-ni]

Lynx7725, on 26 February 2013 - 05:31 AM, said:

The only time it is useful is if you somehow can keep him in that narrow band, which is really difficult. Or if the ECM is on an Atlas, which rapidly becomes a non-issue because every PPC that can fire at the Atlas is likely to be firing at it anyway.

Well, that's exactly why I was asking... how difficult is it in practice to keep the enemy mech in that 70m wide band.

I agree that, if the mech is running directly at you or away from you, then it may be pretty difficult, but that's the worst case scenario. Not every case is going to be worst case. There are other scenarios where you might be running parallel or even stopped. If you are piloting a fast mech, you may be able to compensate for the other mech's velocity (especially if that other mech is focused on something else). I can certainly see myself doing this in a light mech. I'm just curious if anyone else has tried it yet.

[Elessar]

Zekester81, on 26 February 2013 - 05:45 AM, said:

... Zoom is ok, kinda, it's not all that great. It can give you a rough outline of a mech which is more than enough to target it but works better with heat vision. Skip it if you have better modules.

I agree ...
I have used it for a while, but I assume I will replace it soon on most mechs.
While it definitely enlarges the silhoulette at longer distances (especially in combination with heat vision) this only time it is useful if the enemy is standing still and you can better target specific parts with it. Else you might usually also have good or even better results with heat vision and the normal 3.0x zoom (this is, at the ranges up to 1000m, where Gauss Rifles are still efffective).
Especially annoying is, that after switching off your zoom module, your vision doesn´t return to the zoom state you had before switching on the zoom module, but instead it always returns to 1.0 unzoomed state (meaning that you have to press the middle mouse button twice, to return to 3.0x zoom if (which I have regularly) you had 3.0x zoom active before activating the module)

[Lynx7725]

knnniggett, on 26 February 2013 - 05:54 AM, said:

Well, that's exactly why I was asking... how difficult is it in practice to keep the enemy mech in that 70m wide band. I agree that, if the mech is running directly at you or away from you, then it may be pretty difficult, but that's the worst case scenario. Not every case is going to be worst case. There are other scenarios where you might be running parallel or even stopped. If you are piloting a fast mech, you may be able to compensate for the other mech's velocity (especially if that other mech is focused on something else). I can certainly see myself doing this in a light mech. I'm just curious if anyone else has tried it yet.

Well, to be honest, every light ECM I've even had the misfortune to see is either running to close with me or running away, so it's more normal case for me.

Aside from lights, I can think of maybe 4 current chassis that has a speed sufficient to maintain the distance, and that's usually only if the ECM light has not been modified with a bigger engine. And these 4 chassis has to be specifically built for speed. So practically I don't expect to be able to do this in any non-light.

As for lights, I don't have that much experience, I only have a COM-2D, so in such a situation I'd normally just flick my ECM to counter and (1) ready up my SSRMs, and (2) target the now targetable enemy ECM and hope some LRMboat is watching.

The one scenario I can think of is if I happen to walk along and the enemy ECM light is tango'ing with another friendly mech, which is when I can keep the engagement distance specific. But that leaves me vulnerable to other enemies, and I might be able to use the friendly's targeting data from a safer distance away (particularly for LRMs).

Edited by Lynx7725, 26 February 2013 - 06:16 AM.

[PPO Kuro]

Lynx7725, on 26 February 2013 - 05:31 AM, said:

*snip*

The only time it is useful is if you somehow can keep him in that narrow band, which is really difficult. Or if the ECM is on an Atlas, which rapidly becomes a non-issue because every PPC that can fire at the Atlas is likely to be firing at it anyway.

Personaly I find this 70 meter zone to be very handy. I've missiled some ECM lights and a few Atlas to death this way in my TBT-7M. Though when they are coming at you it is less usefull.

[Mercules]

Target Decay is also solid for anyone using LRMs. It holds that lock for a few extra seconds after they go out of sight. That means they actually have to find cover that the missiles will hit and not just break LoS by backing off a hill.

Capture Accelerator I use when playing Conquest. It's nice being able to hop on the square and off faster.

Sensor Range lets you target mechs out to 1k if fully upgraded. ECM makes it less useful but I will often watch a faster ECM mech outpace his team and I can lock the ones behind him up for my team to shoot at. If they start out with ECM coverage some people will not take cover and then the ECM moves away and they are stuck out in the open. Mostly PUGs doing that though.

360 Target Retention is very useful, lets you know where something is when it goes past you. It still won't pick up things sneaking up on you, but once you target them you can watch your back easier.

Target Info Gathering I like. Being able to tell what mech has loaded can save your bacon. Knowing that a Stalker is packing all PPCs and LRMs means it might not be a bad idea to circle around and get up close to it. Knowing a CPLT-C4 is all SRMs means you might want to shoot that before it gets into range.

Enhanced Zoom is... eh... It does zoom but people insisted on a PiP version instead of x4 or x5 similar to the normal zoom. So the Devs did that, and it was the wrong thing to do. The engine they are using for the game doesn't support PiP without redrawing everything. PiP would lag the game if done right so instead it just digital zooms it but it is pixalated like crazy and so note very useful. I use it but only on snipers and only because I bought it before I realized what they had done.

[Lynx7725]

Mercules, on 26 February 2013 - 07:12 AM, said:

Target Decay is also solid for anyone using LRMs. It holds that lock for a few extra seconds after they go out of sight. That means they actually have to find cover that the missiles will hit and not just break LoS by backing off a hill.

Good point, it allows the LRM to home just that bit longer. Hadn't thought of it, was just thinking it's great for that lockup on the mech that just popped out from LOS.

Mercules, on 26 February 2013 - 07:12 AM, said:

Enhanced Zoom is... eh... It does zoom but people insisted on a PiP version instead of x4 or x5 similar to the normal zoom. So the Devs did that, and it was the wrong thing to do. The engine they are using for the game doesn't support PiP without redrawing everything. PiP would lag the game if done right so instead it just digital zooms it but it is pixalated like crazy and so note very useful. I use it but only on snipers and only because I bought it before I realized what they had done.

The thing I think most people don't appreciate about the PiP is that it's a 4x zoom where it's important, but also allows you to keep the 1x peripheral vision. Great for snipers who have to worry about enemy scouts creeping up on it. The 3x zoom narrows the field of vision sufficiently that you can get ambushed. Not too sure about target locks when zooming also.

I personally think the pixelation was done just a bit over the top, a bit less would be nice.. What I really don't like is how the HUD data is superimposed over the PiP badly. Still, it's important to be able to figure out whether that Cent in the distance is a friendly or an enemy.

[Strykewolf]

Garrond, on 25 February 2013 - 09:42 AM, said:

I really like the thought of having a better zoom but people tell me that the zoom module is still kind of buggy. I'll guess it's cap accellerator then.

The 360 target sounds very interesting but i'm not sure on how it works in detail. Could someone explain please?

Yeah, only one I have is advanced zoom. So dang blurry that it's 'mostly' unusable.