17 replies to this topic

[ZOMBIEKILLER]

is there a way to power down your mech so when your at your base or somewere on the field they can not see you on there screens .and when they get close to your base thinking noone is there you power up and gank him.

[Insidious Johnson]

Manual shutdown/restart has been a common tactic and feature in previous games to lose a lock and force a retarget. I can't imagine they'd not have it, especially after mentioning a manual shutdown in some of the ISN fluff.

[Pijpsie]

One of the skills is a decrease in shut-down / start-up time so the devs plan on it being a viable tactic.

[BellatorMonk]

Agreed. I hope they have this mechanic as it was a vital tactic in every version of the games I can remember.

Edited by BellatorMonk, 06 July 2012 - 08:43 PM.

[WrentheFaceless]

Wouldnt be a Mechwarrior if you couldnt shutdown ambush people

[Da Ugh 1701]

there was another tactic that I used when playing against a friend on MW3 or 4 was turning my radar/sensors off. that prevented me him from getting a target lock as I recall. He liked to load up a Diashi w/nothing but LRM's. I'd turn off radar & try to sneak around behind him to get close

[sumdumfu]

DaUgh1701, on 06 July 2012 - 08:52 PM, said:

there was another tactic that I used when playing against a friend on MW3 or 4 was turning my radar/sensors off. that prevented me him from getting a target lock as I recall. He liked to load up a Diashi w/nothing but LRM's. I'd turn off radar & try to sneak around behind him to get close

he'd spot you with his radar as soon as you came within line of sight though no? i never quite understood the electronic warfare aspect of mechwarrior even though i played several of the games. i tried running around with radar off in Mercs but i still get spotted and lit up... and then lit up with lasers. also, if you power off, do you become invisible to radar?

[Ray Stantz]

The Radar had two modes in past mech games, Active and Passive basically if you had passive engaged you could still be detected and get locked on. But the enemy had to be much closer to do so which made it a great tactic especially for scout units. A completely shut down mech is totally invisible to radar unless an enemy mech is using a BAP, which can detect completely shut down mechs.

[Gin Ichimaru]

As a noob, I have never heard of this tactic. Interesting, I plan on using this.

[BoudahXL]

WrentheFaceless, on 06 July 2012 - 08:43 PM, said:

Wouldnt be a Mechwarrior if you couldnt shutdown ambush people

Hell yeah!

[AntharPrime]

Pijpsie, on 06 July 2012 - 08:42 PM, said:

One of the skills is a decrease in shut-down / start-up time so the devs plan on it being a viable tactic.

How do you know this? As far as I know, noone outside of beta has that type of info.

[Dimestore]

An extra layer has been added with there are currently 4 ways your mech can be detected: electronic; simple visual; thermal; and magnetosense.

The only form of detection that is known to be auto-relayed to team mates is electronic detection. Active sensors have long ranges for both detecting and being detected. Passive sensors have short ranges for detecting and being detected but there is a "sweet spot" where someone using passive sensors can detect an opponent using active sensors but not the other way around. A shutdown mech has no electonics active so it can neither detect nor be detected electronically (leaving the special case of the Beagle Active Probe aside)

Simple visual detection is pretty straight-forward and is the most commonway you will see a shutdown mech.

Thermal detection does not appear to be auto-relayed, operating as a slight variation on simple visual detection. It would be especially weak vs a shutdown mech due to the loss of normal visual detail but it could be more effective against passive sensors in an area with bad simple visual visibility (ie fog/storms, camo).

Magnetosense is an explicitly short range sense whose main purpose is to give a couple seconds of early warning that you're about to be ambushed by a shutdown mech. It is unclear whether this detection will be relayed to team mates but it seems likely.

There are two things that mess with these clean explainations: beagle active probe (BAP); and electronic countermeasures (ECM)

BAP is a component that provides enhanced active sensors. Range is enhanced and the ability to detect shutdown mechs at close range is added.

ECM mess with your enemies sensors (especially active sensors) their detection range is reduced and mssile locks are less reliable.

As a scout I will be using all of these details to give my team advantage; whether it's simple location info; rain dancing; or baiting a trap.

[Gamgee]

Can't wait to nail someone with this tactic.

[Dimestore]

AntharPrime, on 07 July 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

How do you know this? As far as I know, noone outside of beta has that type of info.

They gave an overview of the current state of skills & modules in one of the official posts (with provisos that the details might change as it's still a beta). I think it was the Dev Blog about role warfare? You'll have to dig it up yourself if you want the details; I'm posting from my phone and I only bookmarkked that page on my PC (yes, I should lync & sync them but I haven't cared enough to go through the hassle yet).

[Thanatos676]

I have been playing mech games for years and its always been a tactic to shutdown and hide or go passive and not be spotted as easy so i hope they keep that

[SuomiWarder]

Dev Blogs 3 and 4 cover xp and the planned module skills.

[Ranek Blackstone]

in the frozen city trailer, an enemy commando is right up the friendly Dragon's but and isn't marked on radar, so it looks like LoS is the ONLY way to mark enemy mechs.

Plus, I never did like using the powered down ambush strat. Too many ways for it to go wrong and get caught flat footed as they hammer you while you power back up.

[dboy]

Remember playing a map in multi-MW4 where there are NPC powered down mechs. I have my mech parked with them, gave them a good surprise when I powered back up.