20 replies to this topic

[Garrond]

In some of the old mechwarrior pc games one might have encountered a special mission or two where you were forced to meddle with your radar settings in order to reach an objective unrecognized. Despite those special events the option to shut down your radar was completely useles.

Now, while competing against others online (e.g. in MWLL), you'll encounter many advantages in temporarily shutting down your radar:
- sneak up on the enemy from behind
- dont be the first to get attacked when in a group
- capture bases unrecognized
- get rid of a missile lock
- getting rid of persecutors while fleeing to the next repair bay with your damaged mech

So... will there be that much tactics in MWO? Can you turn it off and on again within a reasonable amount of time?

Edited by Garrond, 11 July 2012 - 09:22 AM.

[Der Zivilist]

Radar will have an active mode and a passive mode. Been confirmed by Devs, I think it was one of the Ask The Dev sessions. Not sure which.

[wargonglok]

Yay!

steps to be a jerk in mwo:
1. Go to passive radar
2. find a good hiding spot
3. crouch
4. shutdown
5. wait while team wins
6. ....
7. profit

[Corpsecandle]

wargonglok, on 11 July 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

Yay!

steps to be a jerk in mwo:
1. Go to passive radar
2. find a good hiding spot
3. crouch
4. shutdown
5. wait while team wins
6. ....
7. profit

Don't forget friendly fire. Hopefully your minimap ALWAYS displays your team's location. At which point AFK problems will resolve themselves.

[wargonglok]

I am happy to here that this is included

[Garrond]

I guess this way one really could just wait for his team to win. But I'm quite sure you will earn way more xp and cbills when participating actively in fights or scouting.

[Der Zivilist]

Your team is also more likely to win if you're actively participating.

[Strum Wealh]

Der Zivilist, on 11 July 2012 - 09:24 AM, said:

Radar will have an active mode and a passive mode. Been confirmed by Devs, I think it was one of the Ask The Dev sessions. Not sure which.

It's in Q&A 03:

Quote

Will radar still have a passive mode, and if so, how does it work? –Octobit

[DAVID] Yes, radar will have an active and a passive mode. Our current plans are for the passive radar to have a reduced detection range and limit a lot of the electronic and information warfare equipment on your ’Mech as well as the electronic communication between you and your lance. The benefit is that you become a lot harder for enemies to detect, leading to greater chances to surprise or spy on them.

Though, from the same Q&A:

Quote

Will a satellite overview be a sort of "ping" on the map of all enemy targets that lasts the duration of the satellite or will you be able to hide from it? –Damocles

[DAVID] The satellite scan will be like a radar sweep of the map, revealing information about enemy positions, but this information will quickly decay. We have not yet decided if or how a ’Mech can escape detection (other than taking shelter in a covered area like a cave) but there will likely be methods of doing so. This is more likely to be true if we implement different kinds of satellite sweeps (i.e. thermal, magnetic, etc.).

-----

If I produce a lot of heat like shooting (an) alpha strike, a PPC or something similar, will I be more (easy) to spot on the radar? –Sir Aaron

[DAVID] Running around with excessive heat won’t affect how you show up on normal radar, but you will stand out to enemies using thermal vision mode as well as any thermal sensors in the battlefield.

So, while going turning one's radar off might make you harder to detect, it also hinders one's ow ability to detect threats.
Additionally, there may be other sensors that can pick up other aspects (heat, magnetic fields, etc), and the satellite view may allow one to be seen from a bird's-eye-view, regardless of whether one's radar is in passive or active mode...

[Iron Horse]

I'm actually a bit rusty on my radar knowledge (as my main base of knowledge is MW3 and radar didn't figure heavily into playstyles, then), but I seem to also recall there being two active modes in addition to passive (a 1 km and a .5 km, if I remember correctly, where passive is always held at .5 km). What is the half-active radar good for? Is it just to keep a reference when you quickly switch from passive? Or, is it to "zoom" in for close-quarters? Or, do enemies not detect it beyond its active range? I genuinely do not remember, if someone here could enlighten me.

I also seem to remember that some equipment extends radar range (BAP maybe?).

[CmdrSpider]

While being active will surely gain you much more. There are those out there who will intentional being their player into a game and then walk off to do other things while their player character earns thems something for doing nothing more than showing up. I have even heard that some stoop so low as to have automated programs to put their player character in game after game. I'm trusting that our devs have heard, seen and are taking appropriate measures to prevent these types of shameless (non-game) play.

[NVranya]

@Iron horse: I think it was only to get a better overview when engaged in close combat.

[Glythe]

Remember though that the BAP will detect shut down mechs so turning your radar off will have no effect.

I'm thinking that something like a Raven could have a lot of fun with the ECM by turning off his radar to go NARC targets.

[Terror Teddy]

Turning off radar will usually hinder long range missile locks which is good for sniper mechs with ballistics or energy.

[Jukebox1986]

An ECM/BAP-Scoutlance (for Steiner Pilots: just add Electronics on a Bunch of Zeus-Mechs) will be essential in-Game.
Knowing the position of your enemy while he´s still searching for you is the biggest advantage in battle. Also you really cant go alone because the scouts have to watch for scout-hunters. So a Medium (for Steiner pilots: an propper 95t-100t mech) with a bit of punch has to watch them so you´re side wont lose this advantage.

Edited by Janus Wealth, 11 July 2012 - 11:07 AM.

[Roninator2]

I'm a quite angry with the lack of detection of mechs in the game so far. Several times I have gotten killed by a mech standing point blank behind me and does not show up on the radar. Having your radar turned off or "passive" is fine as long as when a mech attacks it will be detected and show on the map and will show if within 200m of an enemy mech. So sneak up on the enemy and do a "backstab" attack would be not possible unless the enemy is not watching his radar. Even with ECM or ECCM the effect should not allow a mech to stand behind another mech and shoot away to its hearts content.
I love the game series from mechwarrior 1 to 4 and others, but this is quickly going on my garbage list like many other MMO games. They all fall in the realm of "micro transactions", and not much effort is made to make an awesome game, just money. I think this would be better as a mission oriented game than straight MMO shoot'em. Now to find the next topic to complain about. Weapon targeting.

[TheRuslan]

I agree with Roninator2, without collisions, they sneak under our nose. Radar was perfect in first MW. Please look up 1st MW game that ever made. You will see, there was more options in DOS based game than now.
Until the radar fixed, i suggest rearview mirrors !


(good old days)


Hire yourself a bunch of veteran gamers (devoted to this kind of game), so you get things right as they were.

Edited by TheRuslan, 30 November 2012 - 08:43 AM.

[Screech]

Roninator2, on 03 November 2012 - 04:46 PM, said:

I'm a quite angry with the lack of detection of mechs in the game so far. So sneak up on the enemy and do a "backstab" attack would be not possible unless the enemy is not watching his radar. Even with ECM or ECCM the effect should not allow a mech to stand behind another mech and shoot away to its hearts content.

Try turning or having a vague idea of what is around you. Take off the blinders and lose the tunnel vision, this will help you out much more in the long run on this game then asking for crutches. The amount of people I have cored from behind without them seeing me or even attempting to look is significant but they only have themselves to blame.

[StalaggtIKE]

Instead of our current ECM, active/passive radar would have been more tactical and engaging.

[Doden Kriger]

Active and passive Radar was a Tactic and a skill set to leave it out of the game sucks, BAP still cant detect Passive mechs at a decent range. Running a Med mech Passive/active radar ctrl. Hate having to huddle around a atlas or trying to chase down a smaller mech just to stay out of radar at range

Edited by Deathcarlyle, 09 February 2013 - 02:14 PM.

[Alkerae]

I always thought (completely baselessly, I never looked it up or used the options) that the difference between active/passive radar was, active radar would give you lots of information, while passive radar was the silent running mode that didn't send anything out, and instead only showed things that were lighting themselves up... say, with an active radar for instance.

Active vs active: they could both see eachother normally
Active vs passive: the passive radar could see the active radar from further away and/or probably wouldn't show up unless looked at directly, so it was kind of a poor-mans stealth mode, just, nowhere near as good as ECM.
passive vs passive: neither of them would ever detect eachother, ever, missile locks via TAG/NARC only.

I am litterally just on a bad daydreaming session here though, none of that probably has any meaning in reality or how things actually work. As I said, I never cared enough to actually learn, I just saw the options and went "hmmmm"