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[Alabraxis Hyperion]

NARC is currently extremely useless as a system. It takes up 4 tons minimum, requires an accurate hit to function, and it falls off before it has the chance to help enough LRMs hit its target to make it worthwhile.

The change I propose is something like this: add a kind of recon functionality to it. Like the Recon Detection Device in Planetside 2, you would fire the NARC beacon at a piece of terrain and it would then stick there and activate, detecting enemy mechs within a certain radius of it.

Naturally the precise way in which this works would need tweaking and extensive playtesting; it shouldn't replace a UAV but it might work like a stationary seismic sensor with a small range (so you wouldn't get target info but know an enemy was moving there); or it might jam ECM in a small radius; or it might make it faster to target enemy 'mechs in the radius... There are many options.

Ideally the beacon would emit some kind of light and/or map icon and be destructible by the enemy, but NARC can always be fired again to regain the sensor pings. You might only be able to use one NARC beacon at a time, as well.

Side benefits might be allowing airstrikes to target the beacon, and for friendly Command Consoles to get the NARC's data as well (since we need *something* for the Console to do...).

Thoughts?

[Corbon Zackery]

Causing quite a stir when it was introduced in 2587, the Narc system offered a radically different way of improve missile target acquisition. The Narc launcher fires special missiles called pods, which have a powerful homing beacon behind a magnetic head.
The reason the Narc system is superior to the similar Artemis IV FCS is that the target lock is never broken because the homing beacon is attached to the target, and that other friendly 'Mechs can fire missiles equipped to follow the signal without carrying their own Narc beacons.
However the Narc system is not without flaws, the main one being its short range. Narc equipped LRMs have double the range of a Narc pod, requiring either a dedicated spotter to close and tag enemies with Narc pods or for the launching 'Mech to close, tag and pull back to fire, a less than ideal arrangement. Also SRMs and LRMs equipped to track the Narc homing signal cost twice as much as standard munitions. These disadvantages led to the creation of alternate Narc ammunition such as the Explosive Pod to give the launcher more tactical flexibility and the Improved Narc Missile Beacon offering increased the range.


The only fix that needs to be made is that it lasts for the whole match Its magnetically attached to the hull it doesn't just fall off or stop working. What do climb out of your cockpit and rip it off your hull. Hard to remove it when your mech has no hands to rip it off the mech.