61 replies to this topic

[Mokou]

Narc too damn heavy (min 4 tonn) for use.

[A Man In A Can]

Koniving, on 31 May 2013 - 05:35 AM, said:

Okay I've come to a simple conclusion. ...I need to recruit people to help me test this. I can't find Zhizhu mercs suicidal brave enough to run with a NARC.

If you're interested, please come online and add me around 8 PM Eastern Standard Time. I'll arrange for you to hop on the teamspeak, you'll be on youtube, and we'll try to get our NARC testing done. Preferable if you're able to record as well at a 720p resolution to help with making the split-screen footage possible, so clear some space to be able to squeeze in a few recorded matches. Stick around long enough and you might find yourself in Lordred's Perfect Screenshot thread.

I'll do it.

Hell, I'll even do it in a Commando.

I'm on NA Outreach every now and then. PM me here with a day and time or poke me if I'm on TS so we can finally get some hard evidence.

I have some ability to record, but can't guarantee quality.

Edited by CYBRN4CR, 31 May 2013 - 04:15 PM.

[Koniving]

I'm on right this second, though circumstances aren't good for what I was hoping to get done. (Wife keeps nagging)

Throw me an add?

[A Man In A Can]

Koniving, on 31 May 2013 - 04:51 PM, said:

I'm on right this second, though circumstances aren't good for what I was hoping to get done. (Wife keeps nagging)

Throw me an add?

Bah. Must have missed you. Added in game. That way you'll know when I'm on or not. Text chat me in the friends list if I'm not on TS.

[Koniving]

I'm on. Didn't get to accept before we launched again.

[Nik Reaper]

So what happened , did the tests go through?

[Koniving]

Koniving, on 22 May 2013 - 04:31 PM, said:

NARC against an ECM or used by an ECM mech is an issue since ECM (even friendly) instantly kills NARC. (Unless this has been fixed, but I've been complaining about this bug for over 6 months with no results.)

UAV, as I have seen by those using it, goes into the air where it is deployed and remains there. It does NOT move. It is a deployable device that highlights all targets within range, allowing many free LRM targets.

Run into a group, pop the UAV, and RUN while all the LRMs rain fiery death upon the poor fools!

I sorries. We did a little bit of NARC usage around that time but honestly we forgot we were testing whether or not friendly ECM destroys narcs.. We did find out they worked rather well for lrms, though.







Since it's been months I kinda forgot about it.

[Hythos]

Kibble, on 22 May 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

Narc has been changed to where you attach it to a mech all friendly mechs can now target him regardless if the mech that shot it is targeting said narc attached mech.

I was using this lastnight. I would pop behind the enemy line narc someone WITHOUT targeting them and then run away. My team was able to target that mech and rained LRM death down on him/her.

I wish this were the case. I just left a match where I was able to NARC both a 2xLRM-20 catapult and its' defending Hunchback. Seconds later, when I pushed around a corner and out of LOS, either target, neither having taken any damage since - and within 20 seconds, both were gone. They were the last two units on the enemies' side so no ECM was present. My opinion, is that NARC *SHOULD* last the entire game, considering it's impressively underwhelming. Even 1 minute (like the UAV) would make it valuable vs it's current state of being "Oh I fired something".

[Adran]

Hythos, on 17 August 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

I wish this were the case. I just left a match where I was able to NARC both a 2xLRM-20 catapult and its' defending Hunchback. Seconds later, when I pushed around a corner and out of LOS, either target, neither having taken any damage since - and within 20 seconds, both were gone. They were the last two units on the enemies' side so no ECM was present. My opinion, is that NARC *SHOULD* last the entire game, considering it's impressively underwhelming. Even 1 minute (like the UAV) would make it valuable vs it's current state of being "Oh I fired something".

Narc is good for ONE LRM barrage really. After that, it pops. It's meant for a mech to keep narcing as necessary, or for a large strike with a lot of damage to hit them all at once before it pops. You're not gonna kill someone with just one Narc.

[Catalina Steiner]

I tried out NARC for the first time tonight. I had one in stock since I bought the Raven 3L, my first mech.
What shall I say? It was absolutely disappointing. I made eight matches with it and I will change the loadout after that.

I played PUG and in three or four matches there were nearly no LRM mechs in our team. I know this sounds weird but no one answered my question (LRMs anyone?), no one shot them (I watched it), I saw no icon on the enemies that they were under LRM fire... nothing.
In three matches my NARC wasn't used good or was simply ignored. Just one match was fairly a good one... when I narced a mech, it suddenly got missiles on it.

That's a really poor spoil. It's not about the bonus (C-Bills or XP), I don't care... but it did not help my team. I was really disappointed because most of the time I was successful in planting the missiles on the enemy mechs.

Maybe this works better in a unit or a big group but for PUG matches it's wasted. I won't continue to support my team with NARC.

[Sparks Murphey]

With the recent buff to SRMs, I think a lot of missile carriers in PUGs have switched to using SRMs over LRMs. LRMs require you to hope someone can spot for you (or spot yourself), whereas SRMs let you do your thing on your own.

That said, Narc currently (as of time of writing) cancels ECM disruption if you land one on the emitting unit. That alone can be worth quite a bit, as it means you don't need to run your Raven around that Atlas D-DC keeping it's ECM down, or keep pummeling it with PPC shots. One Narc shot, and it's vulnerable again.

[Pekiti]

What Sparks said. NARC is a great anti-ECM weapon, but it has a high opportunity cost for IS units (less so for Clan). You have to decide if its worth the tonnage for the launcher and ammo (and you want at least 1 ton of ammo). It is easy to forget it has really good range, at 450m for the IS version and 600m for Clan. It is also the fastest missile in the game. Don't treat it like a SRM, use every bit of range advantage you can get.

Even in PUG matches it can help your team win, but you have to change your way of thinking about it. It's not a magnet for LRMs (though it can be), it's a single target UAV launcher. NARC a target and everyone on your team can see him, unless he is covered by multiple ECM units. If he gets LRM'd to death, thats a bonus. To any ECM fitted mech (especially the Atlas DDC), being NARC'd is usually a death sentence.

Edited by Pekiti, 26 July 2014 - 08:11 PM.

[Sug]

I heard they patched it so you can start a topic without having to necro a year old thread.

[Pekiti]

Sug, on 26 July 2014 - 08:45 PM, said:

I heard they patched it so you can start a topic without having to necro a year old thread.

I read in the 'How to the forums' that it was wrong to start a new thread on something that's already been covered. And that it was wrong to post useless comments like yours. (/shrug)

[Sug]

Pekiti, on 26 July 2014 - 08:47 PM, said:

I read in the 'How to the forums' that it was wrong to start a new thread on something that's already been covered. And that it was wrong to post useless comments like yours. (/shrug)

Link?

So just because the word NARC is in the title everything related to NARC needs to be included in this thread?

By that logic 90% of the threads in the forums are redundant and should be deleted.

The OP is asking what NARC does. Cat's post is about her first experience using NARC. It's completely unrelated to the OP and the discussion that followed. And the info in this thread is a year out of date.


Edit: Sorry Cat if I sound kinda jerky. Necros are just my forum pet peeve.

Edited by Sug, 26 July 2014 - 09:43 PM.

[Adran]

As the originator of this topic, I have to agree with Sug. Necroing this ancient post was pointless and not appropriate for the discussion that was started. A new thread should have been started instead. I hope the thread gets locked so it can't be necroed again after this...

[SVK Puskin]

Arcturious, on 22 May 2013 - 06:14 PM, said:

Note that it doesn't cancel ECM though - NARC'ing an ECM carrier will still leave the friends of the carrier under ECM. Only the target hit by the NARC becomes visible. Similar to TAG basically, even a TAG'ed ECM carrier still supplies ECM to his team, you can only target the TAG / NARC target.

Yep i can only confirm that! I was piloting AS7-D-DC and i have been narced and the LRMs were chasing me but fortunatelly i had perfect cover otherwise i would not last long.

Edited by ENS Puskin, 27 July 2014 - 12:43 AM.

[SVK Puskin]

Catalina Steiner, on 26 July 2014 - 07:28 PM, said:

Maybe this works better in a unit or a big group but for PUG matches it's wasted. I won't continue to support my team with NARC.

Absulotely + some maps has better LRM cover than others.

[IraqiWalker]

People REALLY need to stop necro'ing threads.

NARC is great when you have some coordination. Without it, and without knowing if your team has LRMs, you are just screwed.

[martius]

Narc works well if your team mates know what to do.

I run a Commando 3A (I use no ECM Commando for the simple reason that it makes sneaking up on an opponent hard- as soon people get jammed they tend to get twitchy) with both TAG and Narc and if the LRM boats cooperate this build is really an asset to the team.

A few days ago I caused the death of 5 'Mechs just by narcing them- it was beautiful to watch them going down in the rain, very well worth the risk of sneaking up to them.

In other games the Narc beacons have been ignored and it can be infuriating to watch swarms of LRMs targetting the Mechs left and right of a narced target.

I start to like Narc as it allows me to designate a target without having to keep LOS and as it causes no damage the target the opponent often only realizes what happened when the rain starts.

To summarize:
Pop out of cover, Narc, get into cover again. Do not shoot your other weapons as this will get you unwanted attention. Your mission is to help your LRM boats and those 80-100 LRMs that eain down make mich more damage than whetever your Mech might carry. Stay hidden, stay alive to Narc again.. and again.. and again.

Rewards are low (as I only do <50 damage in this game, sometimes even zero and the NARC/spotting boni are low compared to what you get for damage/kills/component destruction) but the impact on the match can be tremendous.