Burning Chrome, on 25 April 2014 - 07:59 AM, said:
None of which prevent you from being able to target and hit ecm equipped or protected mechs with LRMs or Streaks.
mogs01gt, on 25 April 2014 - 08:16 AM, said:
What has been PGI's reasoning on the current design of ECM?
However, the
Tactical Operations rules did allow for ECM suites to assist in negating the ability for an opposing 'Mech to establish a sensor lock.
- "The ranges of various electronic sensor systems appear in the Sensor Range Table. To make a Sensor Check, the player rolls 2D6. A result of 7 or 8 means the sensor detects any unit within its short range. A result of 5 or 6 means the sensor detects units out to its medium range. A result of 2 to 4 means the sensor detects units out to its long range. A roll of 9 to 12 means the sensor failed to detect any units. Remember that a spotting unit may use only one type of sensor per turn, which is declared to the gamemaster at the start of the turn." - TacOps, pg. 222
- "In the double-blind game, all ECM and stealth systems modify the die roll results of spotting units attempting to detect an enemy unit equipped with such an ECM system. Because different ECM/stealth systems have different effects against different probes and sensors, the modifiers vary depending on the spotting unit’s probe/sensor and the enemy unit’s ECM system. These modifiers appear in the ECM/Stealth Modifier Table. Once the sensor detection dice roll has been made (including adding any bonus modifiers from the controlling player’s side), the player consults the ECM/Stealth Modifier Table and adds the applicable modifier to the roll result." - TacOps, pg. 224
PGI evidently made the intuitive leap from there to "the BattleMech's
Targeting-Tracking System cannot achieve a weapons lock against something that its sensors cannot lock-onto; it cannot lock-onto what it cannot 'see'".
For MWO LRMs:
Being unable to achieve a sensor lock - and thus a weapon lock - does not prevent the weapon from being fired; when fired without a lock, MWO LRMs will go to wherever the reticle was pointed at the moment the weapon was fired (that is, the dumb-fired LRMs will not follow the reticle once they have left the launch tubes).
As such, MWO LRMs still have a decent chance of hitting a stationary or very slow-moving target (such as the classic poptart, or a team huddled against a hill/outcrop/etc - basically, the same situations against the artillery & air strike modules would be used) - or one whose movements are so predictable that the LRMs can be launched at the point where the target is expected to be - at range. Against a fast or evading target, however, LRMs at range are unlikely to be the most-effective or easy-to-use option.
For MWO SSRMs:
Since the entire point of the
Streak missile system is efficiency & ammunition conservation, the weapon is designed to not fire unless & until a weapon lock has been achieved.
As the Guardian suite can prevent an opposing 'Mech from achieveng a sensor lock (an ability well within its purview, and arguably its primary function), it can also prevent the subsequent weapon lock (since "the opposing BattleMechs' TTSs cannot lock-onto what their sensors cannot 'see'").
Note that this is slightly different from what the more-insidious Angel suite does with SSRMs:
- "The Angel ECM Suite works like standard ECM (see p. 134, TW), but can also block the Bloodhound Active Probe, Artemis V and C3 Booster Systems, and even negates the locking systems of Streak missiles." - TacOps, pg. 279
- "Streak missiles fired into or through a hostile Angel ECM bubble will not fire if the to-hit roll fails, but on a successful Streak launcher attack, the attacker must roll on the Cluster table as though the launcher were a standard (non-Streak) model." - TacOps, pg. 279
While both Guardian and Angel can prevent an opposing 'Mech from achieving a sensor lock (with the latter being more effective against attempts to counter it (e.g. larger penalties applied to an opponent's Sensor Check) in addition to affecting the higher-grade EW equipment), Angel gains the added effect of ensuring that the guidance systems of any SSRMs that do manage to lock-on fail in-flight, thus removing the SSRMs' "guaranteed to hit" aspect and making said SSRMs act like regular SRMs (which is something that Guardian cannot do).
And on top of that, "the Angel ECM suite counts as two ECM or ECCM suites, or the player can choose to run the Angel at 1 ECM and 1 ECCM" (TacOps, pg. 100); the Angel suite is a "two-fer" system that can act like two stacked Guardian suites, where each "side" of the Angel can be set to either mode independently of the other (such that a single Angel suite can act like two adjacent disrupt-mode Guardians (and, yes, the two "sides" stack with each other in BT), two adjacent counter-mode Guardians (and, again, the two "sides" stack with each other in BT), or two adjacent Guardians with one in each mode (and no, the two "sides" of a single Angel suite don't interfere with or cancel each other when set in opposing modes in BT)).
Roadkill, on 25 April 2014 - 08:22 AM, said:
Apparently so.
(Also note how the AGM-88 is over 75% heavier than even the BT Arrow IV missiles; the AGM-88 has a listed weight of 355 kg, while the BT Arrow IV missiles weigh 200 kg each (5 missiles per 1 metric ton ammo allotment, 1 metric ton = 1000 kg)...
)
Though, the recent announcement that the Clan LB-X ACs are intended to receive the ability to switch munition types (source: Paul Inouye on NGNG's "'Mechs, Devs, & Beer #15"; see
here and
here) would hopefully trickle back to the standard (non-Streak) launchers of both tech bases, such that LRM & SRM launchers might eventually get access to alternate guidance systems like
Heat-Seeking Warheads (implemented as locking onto the hottest target near the aim point if fired without a missile lock),
Listen-Kill Missiles (implemented as an anti-radiation missile that locks onto Beagle & ECM carriers near the aim point if fired without a missile lock), and
Follow-the-Leader Warheads (implemented as having weaker tracking strength but tighter spread than normal LRMs)... along with alternate damage effects, like
AX Warheads (implemented as bonus damage vs FF Armor),
Inferno missiles (implemented as adding heat to the target on impact), and
Magnetic-Pulse Warheads (implemented as disrupting a target's sensors on impact, producing an ECM-like effect).
Edited by Strum Wealh, 25 April 2014 - 12:46 PM.
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