32 replies to this topic

[Obelus]

Mechs that can fit ECM should give up something to use it otherwise why would anyone take the other non-ECM variants. ECM should = support role.

Raise ECM to 4 tons weight and 4 critical slots for lights and mediums and 8 tons/6 slots for the Atlas. This will mean folks who run ECM will be making a significant trade off in speed and/or firepower.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Not gonna work. It'd break every stock build that carries ECM.

[Carrie Harder]

Lolno

Balance it with the actual mechanics of the device, not by making the Magic Jesus Box heavier + bulkier.

Edited by Carrie Harder, 15 September 2014 - 10:05 AM.

[Obelus]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 15 September 2014 - 10:03 AM, said:

Not gonna work. It'd break every stock build that carries ECM.

So what?

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Obelus, on 15 September 2014 - 10:04 AM, said:

So what?

So it breaks every stock build that carries ECM, which breaks the store and many other things.

[Mcgral18]

You don't fix something by not fixing it, and by adding extra things to it to make people less inclined to take it.


That's how we ended up with Magic Jesus Box that is countered by NARC.

[Obelus]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 15 September 2014 - 10:06 AM, said:

So it breaks every stock build that carries ECM, which breaks the store and many other things.

Not sure what you mean by break. It just creates a situation similar to when they changed the rules for modules. Players will need to enter the mechbay and readjust their mechs with ECM before they can launch with them. The ECM mechs in the store would also have to be adjusted of course.

[Monkey Lover]

Carrie Harder, on 15 September 2014 - 10:03 AM, said:

Lolno

Balance it with the actual mechanics of the device, not by making the Magic Jesus Box heavier + bulkier.

We wouldn't need the Jesus box if you couldn't lock on to a mech 800-1200m away even when its hiding in trees

Edited by Monkey Lover, 15 September 2014 - 10:10 AM.

[Mcgral18]

I'll rephrase what I said before:

[Obelus]

Mcgral18, on 15 September 2014 - 10:07 AM, said:

You don't fix something by not fixing it, and by adding extra things to it to make people less inclined to take it.


That's how we ended up with Magic Jesus Box that is countered by NARC.

Well I don't think ECM is broken, just unbalanced. What would your prefer as a fix for ECM?

[ToriStark]

Why they are defending current ecm so hard? There was a time without it, and everybody were happy. Now half of community asks for so needed rework, but other part is: "no, we can't play without it1 lrms gonna hurt!" If it will, no doubt, devs will nerf them.

Edited by ToriStark, 15 September 2014 - 10:14 AM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Obelus, on 15 September 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

Not sure what you mean by break. It just creates a situation similar to when they changed the rules for modules. Players will need to enter the mechbay and readjust their mechs with ECM before they can launch with them. The ECM mechs in the store would also have to be adjusted of course.

Modules are weightless and don't take up crit space, and are not on any stock mechs.

ECM has weight and crits, and is included in stock mechs (at a minimum, the Raven 3L), which would mean that PGI would have to go in and manually rework the stock build, thereby breaking the system they've established (the one that hearkens back to the very roots of BattleTech and MechWarrior).

Since ECM is broken mechanically, it'd be far better to fix it mechanically rather than break other things trying to band-aide a problem that never should have happened.

[Mcgral18]

Obelus, on 15 September 2014 - 10:11 AM, said:

Well I don't think ECM is broken, just unbalanced. What would your prefer as a fix for ECM?

Make it ECM, and not Magic Jesus Box.

I'll just quote myself from another thread:

Magic Jesus Box is bad, and you should feel bad.

Let's see what ECM does:

Quote

The Guardian ECM Suite was introduced in 2597 by the Terran Hegemony[1]. Designed to interfere with guided weaponry, targeting computers, and communication systems, the Guardian is typically used to shield allied units from such equipment by emitting a broad-band signal meant to confuse radar, infrared, ultraviolet, magscan and sonar sensors.[2]

Affected systems include Artemis IV, C3 and C3i Computer networks, and Narc Missile Beacons. A Guardian can jam a Beagle Active Probe (or its Clan equivalent), but the probe-equipped unit will be aware of the jamming.

The Capellan Confederation expanded the utility of the Guardian even more with the introduction of Stealth Armor.[3] Contemporary guided missiles such as standard LRM or Streak SRMs are not affected by the Guardian suite and will be able to achieve hard lock as normal.[4]

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Guardian_ECM

I'll just highlight this part:

Quote

Contemporary guided missiles such as standard LRM or Streak SRMs are not affected by the Guardian suite and will be able to achieve hard lock as normal.

Angel ECM can indeed stop Streaks from firing guided missiles, at two tons and two crits.



Stealth armour:

Quote

The finest achievement in stealth systems developed by the original Star League, the Null Signature System was capable of shielding a BattleMech from electronic detection.

BattleMech Stealth Armor provides as much protection as standard armor. It takes up two critical slots in each arm, leg, and side torso. To work, it also requires the 'Mech to carry a Guardian ECM Suite.[1]

The system can be activated or deactivated in the End Phase of any turn. When active the system builds up 10 heat points, and is affected as if it is in range of an enemy ECM Suite. Any unit attacking a BattleMech with active Stealth Armor gets a +1 hit penalty at medium range and a +2 hit penalty at long range. The Stealth Armored BattleMech cannot be a secondary target while the system is active.[6]

http://www.sarna.net.../Stealth_Armour



Guess what Magic Jesus Box does...without any extra crits, tons, or heat? For the small package of 1.5 tons, it even blocks lvl1 LRMs, which it simply shouldn't.

A rework would be nice, though calling for changes to indirect fire is reasonable. Perhaps a larger spread and worse tracking, to simulate the to hit penalty of indirect fire.



So, remove the blocking of LRMs when in LoS would be my first thing. I might actually take a launcher or two without Tag, since I know they won't be useless. As it stands, if you want to take Lurms, you need to boat them. Not really worth the tonnage otherwise.

[Obelus]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 15 September 2014 - 10:13 AM, said:

Modules are weightless and don't take up crit space, and are not on any stock mechs.

ECM has weight and crits, and is included in stock mechs (at a minimum, the Raven 3L), which would mean that PGI would have to go in and manually rework the stock build, thereby breaking the system they've established (the one that hearkens back to the very roots of BattleTech and MechWarrior).

Since ECM is broken mechanically, it'd be far better to fix it mechanically rather than break other things trying to band-aide a problem that never should have happened.

ECM currently has weight/crit slots. This would simply increase them. And we're talking 5 mech variants. Changing this doesn't appear to me to be a significant technical feat.

However I'd like to hear why you think ECM's mechanic isn't working and how it should be fixed? My view is you simply have to balance its benefits/drawbacks.

Other options I've thought about are lowering ECM range...or making it fire like a weapon. Basically a short ECM burst that lasts 15 seconds and then needs 30 seconds to recharge before it can be reused.

[Obelus]

McGral18,

I played Mechwarrior when it was called Battletech and the mechs were little cardboard figurines but I'm not a purist.

They can change ECM to what you suggest. Fine by me. However my impression was that this was off the table because it would require changes to multiple systems.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Obelus, on 15 September 2014 - 10:24 AM, said:

ECM currently has weight/crit slots. This would simply increase them. And we're talking 5 mech variants. Changing this doesn't appear to me to be a significant technical feat.

However I'd like to hear why you think ECM's mechanic isn't working and how it should be fixed? My view is you simply have to balance its benefits/drawbacks.

Other options I've thought about are lowering ECM range...or making it fire like a weapon. Basically a short ECM burst that lasts 15 seconds and then needs 30 seconds to recharge before it can be reused.

The underlying principle of mech deployment for PGI has been to issue them via the stock variants from the lore. Each of those variants has a set of equipment that is fixed, which any change to weight or critical values would break.

RVN-3L is the stock ECM Raven. Note that its tonnage is full.

As for ECM balance, the basic mechanic is broken in concept. It is a hard counter, and hard counters are pretty much universally toxic to good gameplay. Far better would be to have ECM move to a soft counter system, where ECM and all the other electronic warfare items give penalties and bonuses that stack one with another.

Having ECM increase lock-on times, reduce detection ranges, etc., would be far closer to its lore function than the current invisibility screen and lock-on hard-counter mechanics, while also being far healthier for overall gameplay, without removing the utility in bringing an ECM to the field.

[Bigbacon]

OR...

get players to use the counter availible in the game and maybe change the way certain things work to offset it a bit more.

Like make tag and narc ignore ECM so you can't hide in another ECM field to negate it.

still not seeing the problem with it...it has counters just no one wants to use them OR no one wants to think a bit and maybe.....kill the ECM mechs first?

And don't forget about UAVs.

[Khobai]

Eh its a pretty simple problem and the fix is equally simple:

1) ECM should not hard counter LRMs. ECM blanket stealth needs to go because it's a hard counter and we dont want hard counters. ECM should only soft counter LRMs. ECM should make it more difficult to get and hold locks with LRMs. ECM should also reduce LRM accuracy/spread/tracking.

2) Indirect LRMs should not be so strong that they need a hard counter. LRMs when fired indirectly should get a substantial penalty to spread and tracking. Maybe even a random miss chance to simulate the accuracy loss of indirect LRMs. Additionally screenshake on LRMs needs to be lowered significantly.

Did we really need a council to figure that one out? nope.

Edited by Khobai, 15 September 2014 - 10:42 AM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Khobai, on 15 September 2014 - 10:40 AM, said:

Eh its a pretty simple problem and the fix is equally simple:

1) ECM should not hard counter LRMs. ECM blanket stealth needs to go because it's a hard counter and we dont want hard counters. ECM should only soft counter LRMs. ECM should make it more difficult to get and hold locks with LRMs. ECM should also reduce LRM accuracy/spread/tracking.

2) Indirect LRMs should not be so strong that they need a hard counter. LRMs when fired indirectly should get a substantial penalty to spread and tracking. Maybe even a random miss chance to simulate the accuracy loss of indirect LRMs. Additionally screenshake on LRMs needs to be lowered significantly.

Did we really need a council to figure that one out? nope.

For your point (2), I've long thought that having an area-saturation flight pattern for indirect LRMs would be an amazing change for this game. Since PGI can apparently already tell when an LRM launcher has LoS (Artemis IV detects that, for instance), it'd be great if they took that to the logical extension: indirect has a tall, arcing flight path and the missiles spread out deliberately so that they can saturate an area; direct has tightly-clustered missiles that follow a low, flat flight path so that they can concentrate damage on the specific target.

[Khobai]

Quote

I've long thought that having an area-saturation flight pattern for indirect LRMs would be an amazing change for this game

While I dont disagree with the idea, I do think it sounds more like an alternate ammo type for LRMs: Swarm LRMs.