NARC originally lasted 20 seconds per beacon for a total beacon time of 2 minutes per ton of ammo.
The first buff NARC received upped the beacon duration to 30 seconds per beacon for a total of 3 minutes of beacon time per ton of ammo. It made a brief appearance in game then disappeared again because it was still useless.
The second buff NARC received added the damage mechanic ON TOP of the timer. So the beacon lasts for X amount of damage done(35 in this case) to the ENTIRE NARC'd MECH, or 30 seconds, whichever came first. It again made a brief appearance on the battlefield only to disappear shortly afterwards because is was indeed, still useless.
So as it stands 1 ton of NARC ammo gets you 3 minutes of beacon time or a *maximum* of 210 damage. That might be acceptable if that 210 damage was guaranteed but if the timers run out you get less damage, much less on a mech with a good pilot who is actively trying to run the timer out. And that damage is not component specific. So even if it was guaranteed, it could be just spread out all over a mech....kind of like LRMs tend to do.
The timed beacon mechanic needs to go.
The X amount of damage per beacon mechanic needs to go.
For a viable NARC:
Make the beacon last until the component it attaches to is destroyed. This makes NARC's other attributes make more sense(short range, dumb-fire, low ammo).
Let the beacon be nullified by friendly ECM while inside the bubble(which it already does). Let the beacon also be knocked out permanently by PPC EMP.
Edited by Xendojo, 08 May 2013 - 04:51 AM.