39 replies to this topic

[CycKath]

Nowadays I use Narc purely as a ecm disabler/"Look their over here!" tool, only time I expect to see LRMs flying towards it is when I'm carrying both Narc and LRMs (Hello Mister Treb 7M!)

[GreyNovember]

This is the best part though.

Nobody actually seems to take Narcs seriously.

People assume "Oh it was just a random light putting a narc on me. I'll stay in cover for a bit until it comes off."

They don't think that light is out to light up the entire team and keep them lit up.

[ArcticPrism]

Davers, on 11 October 2015 - 05:15 PM, said:

All true, but ECM doesn't actually remove the NARC, only suppresses it. If you were to leave the ECM bubble an active NARC will still work.

I see. I guess it just felt like it did. Thanks for the constructive response!

[LordNothing]

for what the narc actually does feels like it needs to be like a ton and give you like 30 rounds/ton for ammo and can the ecm hard counter. for its current cost i think the beacon duration needs to be at least trippled.

[Baba Yogi]

i play with narc+3ml MLX, damn effective mech tbh. Narc gives team a target to focus on and 3ml is a decent harrasser. And the chassis complements this playstlye very well, its very mobile + has active probe which you can use to negate ecm when necessery.

[EekaBlitzer]

I stopped dropping with by Narc equiped mechs in the solo queue, because MM always put me on the team with no LRMs. Other team had them, not my team though. Kept happening, so I eventually got so fed up I stopped using those mechs.

[Xoco]

Can NARC get shot down in flight by AMS?

I have always wanted to try them, but the weight is absolutely prohibitive on my lights (I only have Locust..and having a NARC on one means I can't carry anything else, basically).

I'll try dropping one in my Dragon next time. He's nice and fast. Maybe he'll work well as a supporty mech.

[MeiSooHaityu]

What happened to NARC?...
Someone ratted it out!

Ba-dum CHI!

I'm here all night ladies and germs.


Anyway, if it's PUGing, I'm assuming it is a lack of rewards due to the general decline in LRM usage combined with the lack of team play and cohesiveness in solo queue. When everyone is in it for themselves and the device isn't being useful, might as well use the tonnage and space for more weapons.

[Coolant]

I get narc'd a couple times a night. Same ratio as before that I see

[DjPush]

Too many ECM mechs for NARC to be worth the tonnage.

[wanderer]

IS NARC basically means huge amounts of tonnage for something overlapping ECM negates completely and minimal reward.

Clan NARC is at least lighter and has reasonable range- but again, it's snuffed by ECM coverage.

When you get the magic combo of NARC + intelligent LRMs + insufficient ECM overlap, it's wonderful with the module as a way to get and keep red doritos onscreen and rained on.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

Lights pilots want to be assaults.......without the drawbacks of being impossible to miss, or the disadvantage of having all of their "benefit" of armor negated by anything behind them.

So they pack as many weapons as possible instead of things like tag, narc, or bap that help the team win more consistently.

Edited by The Atlas Overlord, 13 October 2015 - 01:13 PM.

[Burktross]

Alistair Winter, on 11 October 2015 - 01:00 PM, said:

"What's a NARC?"

- PGI

The only kind of NARC bonus ever given is a NARC-kill. Basically, you have to NARC a target that gets killed by LRMs. If the killing blow is a laser or gauss round, you get nothing. If the LRMs do 300 dmg to that target, but it survives the match or is killed by something else, you get nothing. If you NARC 12 mechs and the LRM boats on your team do a total of 3000 damage thanks to your NARCs, but someone else gets all the kills, you get nothing.

But we pointed this out to PGI about 18 months ago, so it should be fixed any day now.

It's either this, or tag/narc farming.
I really miss tag farming in my 4P....

[Lorian Sunrider]

The mechs that are generally going to use NARC and be effective with it are light mechs. 4 tons to mount, 12 shots per ton. So realistically 5 tons for a weapon that doesn't get you C-bills, isn't really appreciated outside of group queue and still runs out of ammo fairly quickly.

Honestly? If they dropped the weight by a ton or two and upped the ammo it would probably help.

[Burktross]

The Atlas Overlord, on 13 October 2015 - 01:07 PM, said:

Lights pilots want to be assaults....

So they pack as many weapons as possible instead of things like tag, narc, or bap that help the team win more consistently.

None of which do that. Infotech is for the most part useless now, except for the the occasional BAP on a missile boat. If I drop in my Tag, Narc, BAP, ECM 3l with only 2 lasers and an srm4, I'm a liability. If I drop in a x6 SL locust, on the other hand, I actually contribute a good deal for my tonnage.

So.
Don't hate the pilots, hate the game.

[Alistair Winter]

The Atlas Overlord, on 13 October 2015 - 01:07 PM, said:

Lights pilots want to be assaults....

So they pack as many weapons as possible instead of things like tag, narc, or bap that help the team win more consistently.

ACHs doing 500-1000 dmg will help their team win more consistently than bringing the so-called scout mechs with BAP, TAG and NARC.

[Khobai]

ECM should counter NARC, working as intended. ECM counters NARC in tabletop too.

However ECM should not grant stealth. There are ways to gain stealth in battletech but ECM isnt one of them. Theres null signature system, stealth coating, etc...

ECM granting aoe super stealth for 1.5 tons is simply not balanced... look at how much NSS costs in terms of tonnage/crit slots and all its downsides, and it only stealths the mech its equipped on. That is how disproportionately overpowered ECM stealth is.

Quote

ACHs doing 500-1000 dmg will help their team win more consistently than bringing the so-called scout mechs with BAP, TAG and NARC.

Because info warfare is stupidly pointless in this game in its current state.

1) cant screw with IFF to confuse enemies if a mech is friendly or not
2) cant spoof fake radar signatures (ghost ecm)
3) cant hack enemy missiles and make them target enemy mechs (i.e. nemesis narc pod)
4) bap doesnt even do half of the things it should do like detect enemies through obstacles/terrain or give 360 detection. it doesnt even help you detect stealthed mechs better at long range and its a sensor suite!
5) we dont have active/passive sensors or proper stealth equipment like null signature system/stealth coating
6) stupidly, you can shoot farther than sensors can detect, which makes eyeballing more important than sensors.

info warfare should be about spreading misinformation, helping your team sort real information from misinformation, and generally causing chaos/discord among the enemy ranks.

Edited by Khobai, 13 October 2015 - 01:21 PM.

[Lorian Sunrider]

Alistair Winter, on 13 October 2015 - 01:11 PM, said:

ACHs doing 500-1000 dmg will help their team win more consistently than bringing the so-called scout mechs with BAP, TAG and NARC.

It's also the only real way to get paid well/grind XP for lights as well.

[Astrocanis]

AC GLINT, on 11 October 2015 - 11:51 AM, said:

Seriously its a rare sight to see anyone with narc nowadays, for me that is, it might as well be removed. There's no point in taking it either since it helps the other lazy gits in the back more while you put your self in danger trying to get some 12k reward, which would probably be denied by some god damn flying rats with lasers.




^Whats the point, wheres my reward for helping the lazy gits and letting the team know where they are? i spent whole match just narcing for a whopping 38k(nothing from narc). why did they remove cbils per hit, was there ever a given explanation?

I was in a game in my 3L the other night. I asked if anyone had LRMs. Two people replied. I said "watch for NARC" and they replied that they would. At no point during the entire fight did LRM flights target any of my narced targets. Targets to either side? Absolutely. Narc? No chance. Good thing R&R is not in the game. I got zippo for my efforts.

Thinking about removing NARC altogether. Most games there are no LRMs. When there are, they rarely target the narc or tag target. Pointless.

[wanderer]

NARC's an information-generating weapon.

Information isn't worth xp/cbills nor does it generally effectively increase kill speed in most cases...and even when you've got NARC, you also often have to understand what your missile lobbers look for in a target. NARCing a target they can't effectively hit due to terrain or the like? Still no good.

It's a very painful guessing game, and my usual NARCfesting involves trying to tag 'Mechs I see getting shot at (or ECM carriers).