19 replies to this topic

[N0D]

Hi! I'm N0D, and this time i'll be offering my humble help to those of you, dear newbie pilots, who want to become sneaky little annoyances to all the enemies out there on the battlegrid. Fun and frustration guaranteed!

For this you'll have to take a couple of steps:
1. Bite off your christmas-special gingerbread man's head.
2. Repeat step №2
4. Motivate yourself with Sabaton - Ghost division (very important!)
5. Realize that there were no step №3
6. Get ready to die a lot if(when) your PUG team is doing badly and vice versa.
7. Eat gingerbread man's legs.
8. Pick any fast ECM-carrying mech build from the below list, and go kick some shiny metallic mech-@sses!

GRF-2N
2 med pulse lasers and SRM/16 with enough ammo to perform almost 19 full volleys. Reasonable 114 kph running speed and a jumpjet to fly over medium obstacles. Brawl them out from the back!

PXH-1B
4 med pulse lasers and 2 mgs on agile arms, fast 135,4 kph, and a jumpjet. Wub-wub!
PXH-2
Another PXH, this time around it has whoooping-wubbing 6 mpls solely on arms. Imo - best pinpoint firepower out of all *fast* ecm carriers.

CDA-3M
A medium mech which runs 148 kph! 4 mpls. No JJs though. Nothing more to say here.
CDA-3M
The same as above, but runs slower... and has an ultra autocannon/5! Rock 'em hard or die with your uac jammed!

RVN-3L
3 mpl plus some healthy 25 volleys of SRM/6, at a speed of 146.8 kph.

COM-2D
1 mpl and SRM/8. 146.3 kph. Hey, he's a 25 tonner, so give poor fella some slack! At least he's so tiny that it's sorta hard to land a good hit on him...

ACH-PRIME
139.3 kph. 2 c-er small lasers in torsos, 4 small pulses on hands. Clan comp for better crits. Also, 6 friggin' jets to fly around with.

SHC-PRIME
Ah, the Shadowcat. 2 large pulses, 3 machineguns, 6 jets again (70 meters worth of flight!). Very fun. Is kinda on the slower side, though: 104.5 kph, tweaked... oh, but MASC may help with that a bit.

SDR-5D
148 kph fast, 2 med lasers and 1 large pulse worth of dps Spider (may seamlessly be loaded with 2 mpl and 1 ordinary large laser instead, your choice). 1 jet.

Honorable mention: KFX-PRIME
Slow, weak and kinda ugly, this mech is not particularly fit to "go for it". Instead, he clings himself onto friendly heavies and mediums, caringly protecting them with an ECM bubble and a dedicated array of tripple AMS. 3 mpls and 2 mgs may add a bit to the team's damage output.

Edited by N0D, 28 December 2016 - 01:17 AM.

[Koniving]

Neat build options.
That poor Raven's gotta get really close in though.

Also Phoenix Hawk 1B's link is broken.

[N0D]

Btw, i do know, that an active ECM overrides active probe radius. I haven't found any confirmation on if it does so while inactive (in that other mode). Also, most of the info on this is outdated, so whatever.
In all the builds above BAP/c-AP is easily interchangeable with an ammo slot, heatsink or some additional armor. Have fun!

[Koniving]

ECM overrides an Active Probe's radius?

Are we confusing Battletech for MWO? Or do you know something that's changed which hasn't been announced?

It's pretty hard for a device with a radius of 90 meters to override one with a radius of 270 meters

Edited by Koniving, 27 December 2016 - 07:40 AM.

[N0D]

Koniving, on 27 December 2016 - 07:39 AM, said:

ECM overrides an Active Probe's radius?

*shrugs* I dunno why they did it myself.
https://mwomercs.com...23-21-may-2013/

Quote

A Mech that equips both ECM and BAP will only receive the sensor range bonus and the ability to detect powered down Mechs from BAP. Other BAP features gets overridden by the active ECM

I may be getting something wrong here though, but whatever.

Koniving, on 27 December 2016 - 07:35 AM, said:

That poor Raven's gotta get really close in though.
Also Phoenix Hawk 1B's link is broken.

Live fast and die young! Also, ECM helps with the sneakiness bit.
Just checked and link seems to work fine.

Edited by N0D, 27 December 2016 - 07:51 AM.

[Koniving]

N0D, on 27 December 2016 - 07:43 AM, said:

*shrugs* I dunno why they did it myself.
https://mwomercs.com...23-21-may-2013/

I may be getting something wrong here though, but whatever.

Edit:
Ah, I see --
- A Mech that equips both ECM and BAP will only receive the sensor range bonus and the ability to detect powered down Mechs from BAP. Other BAP features gets overridden by the active ECM.

This is you holding ECM and BAP together.
You have ECM for jamming. You only get BAP's Sensor enhancement (+150 meters if I'm not mistaken) and BAP's ability to detect shutdown 'Mechs.
I thought you meant ECM's ability to jam overriding BAP. Basically you get hampered with ECM's jamming and counter-jamming ranges... currently 90 meters... instead of BAP's counter jamming range of currently 270 meters. This much holds true and basically short of the extended sensor range you waste your tonnage in MWO.

[Edit: Looked at the date and was like "Dude, seriously?" Then after I finished writing I looked at the link, found the line you must've met and it's like "well damn that was quoted here already"]

Original response:
Do you have any idea how many changes to ECM has occurred since the ages of the dinosaurs? That's quite a relic.

Currently ECM has a range of 90 meters.
It is overridden (edit "Disabled") by Active Probes at a range of 270 meters, completely disabling ECM as a HARD counter. This is as of 2012 or 2013 for the HARD COUNTER and as of 2016 for the range changes..

There are currently Hard Counters and Soft Counters
Hard Counters: DISABLE ECM COMPLETELY.

• Beagle Active Probe -- automatically counters 1 ECM within a range of 270 meters, disabling it completely.
  
• Clan Active Probe -- Disables 1 TARGETED ECM 'Mech up to a range of 270 meters but requires the 'Mech to have been targeted in the first place meaning they must use the soft counter "Sweet Spot" first or have it assisted by other means.
  
  • Note: Both Probes LOSE this ability when equipped alongside ECM on the same 'Mech.
• ER PPC blast -- Disables the target for roughly X seconds (the value I believe is 5 to 7 seconds).
  
• NARC -- Disables 1 ECM upon impact against ECM user. NOTE: ECM disables NARC on OTHER targets.

Soft Counters: DISABLE ECM PARTIALLY. These allow you to target the ECM 'Mech but do NOT disable the "25% lock time delay" of its jamming.

• UAV -- Allows targeting of ECM 'Mech within its line of sight.
  
• TAG -- Allows targeting of ECM 'Mech so long as beam is on target. (Note: 25% faster lock time nullifies the 25% lock time delay of ECM to get normal lock time; if this was a hard counter you'd be able to lock the disabled ECM 25% faster than you actually can.)
  
• Sweet Spot -- A range between 180 to 250 meters in which you can target the 'Mech; the target box will flicker indicating the jamming is active but your sensors are overcoming it. The actual range depends on your Sensor Range -- so enhancements like Command Console, Targeting Computers, or the Tactictron 2000...will allow you to extend this 'sweet spot' counter.
  
• PPC blast -- a standard PPC blast only results in a soft counter, allowing targeting but not disabling the 25% lock delay jam by ECM.

Edited by Koniving, 27 December 2016 - 08:09 AM.

[N0D]

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/equipment
This states that regular PPC and c-ER PPC disable target ECM for 6.0 seconds, while non-clan ER PPC disables it for 10.0s.

So, in short, is BAP completely worthless if taken alongside ECM for the purpose of sniffing out enemies?
25% increased sensor range, 25% decreased target info acquisition time (NOT lock-on time!), and ability to target unpowered 'mechs within 120m are totally not worth 1 or 1,5 tons of weight...

[Koniving]

N0D, on 27 December 2016 - 10:07 AM, said:

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/equipment
This states that regular PPC and c-ER PPC disable target ECM for 6.0 seconds, while non-clan ER PPC disables it for 10.0s.

So, in short, is BAP completely worthless if taken alongside ECM for the purpose of sniffing out enemies?
25% increased sensor range, 25% decreased target info acquisition time (NOT lock-on time!), and ability to target unpowered 'mechs within 120m are totally not worth 1 or 1,5 tons of weight...

A pleasant change. I remember something about the PPC change it's good to know that standard PPCs might be able to do a hard counter now and IS ER PPC gets extra time.

And I suppose it really depends. For me it isn't worth while to do in MWO.

Now Battletech? Hell, ECM's the useless piece of junk that's sometimes handy... but BAP? That's the jesus box in double blind tabletop; especially when playing it on Megamek with simultaneous turns. Sport BAP, disable enemy ECM when you get close, detect ambushes before they happen, and on the ever so rare but successful starting turn roll... detect everyone within 1,000 meters. The holy grail of cheating ********, the BAP.

[N0D]

I've cut all the active probes out of the builds, plus made some improvements. Notable changes: Kitfox now has tripple ams and ACH-prime has 4 small pulses on hands and 2 small erls on torsos. Spider now has enough weight to carry something big from energy arsenal - lpl, ll, ppc/erppc.

[TooDumbToQuit]

This still drives me nuts.

A soft counter happens by itself. A "hard counter" is when you put your ECM on "Counter". Right? But it can only counter up to 270 meters. But the Probe counters do not work when you have ECM on. (I think there are more than one definition of the word "Counter" in this game)

I know this is a game thing but it makes no sense that BAPs/CAPS lose the ability to "counter" (which I take it means "find" or disable) a Mech with ECM if it is also carrying ECM. A Probe should enhance the ECM, not have powers taken away when paired with it.

I will keep using both (and a funking TC1).

So if every mech carried a Probe, carrying an ECM would be obsolete it seems. There would be zero reasons for it in the game.


Let's see if these are still true. It seems there is a difference between the IS and Clan version of the Probe. Having a Probe with ECM still gives you 25% increased sensor range, 25% decreased target info acquisition time (NOT lock-on time!), and ability to target unpowered 'mechs within 120m.

But then the probe will not counter or "find" a Mech using ECM because by magic that feature gets turned off. But it still works as a Probe just not in "countering" ECMs.

I take it if you are a Mech with ECM, a Probe has no effect at 300 yards. So maybe there is still a reason for carrying them. And a Probe does nothing for offsetting another Probe.

Are these still true? And if they had changed, how did they?

TAG, Narc, and Artemis now reduce the size of the overall size and spread of the missile formations.[/color]

TAG reduces the spread of missile formations to 75% of their normal size.

Narc reduces the spread of missile formations to 75% of their normal size.

Artemis reduces the spread of missile formations to 67% of their normal size when the Mech has line of sight to its target.

Bonuses from TAG stack with those from Narc or Artemis, but an Artemis equipped Mech receives no bonuses from Narc Beacons.

e.g. TAG and Narc together reduce the spread of missile formations to 56.3% of the normal size (75% of 75%)


Enemy disruption ECM will no longer mask the positions of your teammates (what?)

[TooDumbToQuit]

If I had a 12 Mechs with ECM, they would be useless against a team of 12 Mechs that had Probes.


The only thing is that the Probes can only find them within 270 yards. And I take it that this distance cannot stack with the adv sensor module etc.

[N0D]

LikeUntoGod, technically speaking, if it was real life field electronic warfare, then incompatibility of a pair of systems, which would function like ECM and BAP, would be totally understandable. That is, if you'd want to stay hidden AND continue active search at the same time. If you pardon my non-native English, then the theory in layman terms is like this:

There are, for example, two armored mechs, hostile to each other. Both emit faint but wide array of electromagnetic radiation (radio-, thermal-, and other waves). This is because they are hot machines and they use radio to communicate, etc. Both mechs are equipped with radar-like sensors, that can, uh... sense this radiation even in a "passive mode", because radiation is something that spreads from the enemy you seek to you (and anyone else in the vicinity), slowly dissipating with passing distance. Those sensors are also able to "shoot out" powerful radio waves on their own. Why is it needed? Well, those waves partly ricochet from the enemy mech back to you, so even if that mech does not emit enough radiation on his own, you will still see him. This is what, supposedly, called "active probing" in Mechwarrior. Thing is, if you emit radio waves to seek out hostile mech, then that mech's sensors will inevitably sense those waves, and thus, you too. Which means that "active probing" also actively gives away your own position.
ECM-like system on the other hand... yes, it also emits some radio waves, but they are more faint, random, and totally NOT meant to ricochet off hostile mech back to yourself for you to "see" the enemy. No, the purpose of those waves is a good bit more complicated then that. You see... there's always some radiation around. Especially while you're in the technogenic environment, for obvious reasons. However, usually your average mighty mech does give away much more radiation, compared to the surroundings, and that's why it can be distinguished easily. Now let's think about what the enemy "sees" if you have ECM equipped and working. This tricky box of ungodly chaos... sort of "pollutes" area with all sorts of waves that have a bit of lasting area effect. Those waves are "fond of" randomly resonating and ricocheting off surrounding objects, also dissipating quickly over length, so the exact pinpoint location of their source can't be "seen" over a large distance. And while your mech stays in that "cloud" of anomally high areal radiation, it can't be distinguished by hostile sensors *that easily*. This is why ECM has area of effect, and if one without ECM leaves its bubble cover, then he becomes a distinguishable target again.
At long distances, your mech radiation and your ECM waves do seem to "look" sort of alike. Or at least enemy computer, which processes sensor's information, can't say for certain, which of thousands of signals is "real you". Which is why it filters out all the chaotic signals, including the true one (because it "thinks" that they are "garbage" that won't be useful in any way). On the other hand, at short distance, your ECM radiation cloggs enemy sensors with sheer power of chaos. However, at medium range, where ECM source is not close enough yet for clogging, but your mech is already a big enough target to distinguish, you will be "seen"!
If you have working BAP, then in "shoots out" waves, too powerful for ECM to emulate. ECM just can't make it so that your surrounding objects would reflect radiation strong enough to look like one, that is emitted by your BAP. Basically, you give away a distintive signal "i am here", despite standing in a chaotic cloud of less powerful radiation. This is why BAP and ECM in cloaking mode shouldn't work together.

...This doesn't explain in any way why BAP active surroundings probing function is overwritten by ECM if the latter one emits less powerful waves, though. Seems to me like a "mech software issue" that is *supposed* to be fixed.

[TooDumbToQuit]

It does not make a damn bit of sense but it is a great explanation, lol.

OK, there is the "Lore". Then there is the "gameplay". Then there how it should work.

Until I can get someone to PVP me in some test and record them, I'm going to have a hard time believing it. I believe what I can see.

Now this is only in games but every ECM carrying Mech I own also carries a Probe and they do "seem" to act like Mechs under ECM coverage.

But being different can be fun. I mean, if you cannot put a freaking Flamer in your head, what's the use? It's a game, lol.

Here is the way I look at it. Probes are active and passive. I understand there was a time in MWO when a device in the cockpit told the pilot that he was targetted but it drove people crazy. The active part of a Probe seeks out radiation in many forms and there are heat and seismic signatures to be found. And I've always assumed it must have a basic radar. If it had a Doppler radar....that would be too much to ask. I was just in a match where I knew there was but could not target an enemy mech 230 meters away because it was on the other side of the snowbank. But I could target 3 enemy mechs 500-700 meters away. I know that buildings, rocks, etc will block your natural sensors and even Probes.

I know a couple of forms of ECM. Passive, Spoofing and simply overwhelming.

To much to think about.....back to a game...lol.

[SQW]

If you get caught caught out of position by a ecm light, your can't transmit target info so your team mates can't assist you with LRM fire. With BAP, the lights will have to contend with something it never wants to hear - missile locks.

It is as much a defensive tool as an offensive one.

[N0D]

SQW, yeah, but if BAP is combined with ECM, it won't do that (or so i've been led to believe by early patchnotes). Instead, if you're in a light/medium mech, equipped with ECM, you might consider forfeiting brawl to quickly find cover and then switch ECM to counter mode, locking enemy mech after that. Sure, this way you both will show yourselves up on the map, but you'll be in cover beforehand, so enemy lrms rain won't do to you much... hopefully. On the other hand, opponent, that'll give chase to you, will likely find himself on the open field, rained by your team's lrm support (again, *hopefully*)
If BAP and ECM *could* work together, then their combination would definitely be worth the spent tonnage, but... oh well.

Btw, nice name. Very short

[Insanity09]

Basically, all sensors, RL, come in two flavors, passive or active.
Anything passive just sits back and "listens" for a signal of some sort, sound, light, thermal, radiation, EM in other forms.
Seismic sensors and radiation detectors are passive
Your own senses are all passive, you just detect signals produced by something else.

A bat's echolocation or a whale's sonar is active, they emit a signal and listen for the bounced (returned) sound. But... they are also passive, in that they can also hear signals produced by other bats and whales (or other stuff).
Which brings us to radar, which is also active and passive, using a simplified definition. (btw, thermal, or IR, can also be active or passive).

A radar emitter sends a signal out to bounce off an object, the bounced signal is then heard, detected, by the receiver. The trick is that anybody can detect the signal sent out by the emitter, and this is why a modern fighter jet often does not use its radar in active mode all the time. (Add that if you hear somebody else's signal, you detect it twice as far away, rule of thumb, as they can themselves).

When it comes to counter measures, one method, basically, is to overwhelm the sensor. Whatever the detector detects, you send LOTS of that signal to it and blind it or fry it by giving it too much to deal with. Many ECM (radar) jammers work on that principle. Just flood the radar receiver with so much noise that they get nothing useful out of the mess (except that something is over thataway).
The other method, in simple form, is to distort or otherwise obfuscate the enemy detection: absorb the signal so they get nothing back, conceal it behind a wall of chaff, reflect it in an odd direction, or send their signal back altered so they get incorrect (or no) info. There are many ways to do this, some low tech, some very sophisticated.

As far as BAP/ECM in game... beats me. I can see how a jammer type of countermeasure would disrupt a receiver of the same type on the same vehicle (mech), that does make sense... but if you mounted a radar jammer, why wouldn't you use an active sensor of another kind on the platform (e.g. IR) so they didn't interfere with each other? Shrug.

[N0D]

Insanity09, on 29 December 2016 - 01:40 AM, said:

I can see how a jammer type of countermeasure would disrupt a receiver of the same type on the same vehicle (mech), that does make sense... but if you mounted a radar jammer, why wouldn't you use an active sensor of another kind on the platform (e.g. IR) so they didn't interfere with each other? Shrug.

...Because mech ECM suite is supposed to be sophisticated enough to shower hostile sensors with all types of possible radiation,so as to be as much effective as possible? If it leaves enough wavelength "room" for your active probing (which won't interfere with ECM own radiation), then this "room" is your weakspot - enemy shall sense you by the "room" of those waves alone.
It's either you "protect" your active probing waves with backup interfering ECM garbage waves of the same type, so as to be less distinguishable, but at the same time you receive *way* less structured info from probing... or you "protect" yourself only from enemy sensing you by all other types of waves except your probing ones, which *will* give you away. Something like that, i assume.
The only time you'll be able to stay hidden AND active probing hostiles at the same moment is when enemy sensor cannot sense your probing waves *at all*. That is, if he physically lacks subsensors of your waves type. Which should be *very* unlikely, considering how both clanners and IS side oftenly steal good designs from eachother.

Edited by N0D, 29 December 2016 - 02:32 AM.

[The Blood God]

i like your style the guard fox is a fav of mine i run it 4 mgs and 3 mls with a lot of ams ammo and ams range and overload some matches i just hide just ahead of my team and shoot down nearly every LRM that comes past once the enemy is out of LRMs we go melt face with real weapons

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Not mentioning the pirates' bane? Not mentioning the mist lynx?
Okay, i sorta get why not mentioning the mist lynx but the BANE? Come on!

[N0D]

Toha Heavy Industries, MLX-C is the only ECM-capable variant of lynx. And frankly speaking, it's terrible. It lacks everything: speed, armor, tonnage, hardpoints... i chose builds, that may do some noticable sneaky damage to the enemy team. Lynx doesn't fit in.
Pirate's bane is good, but i excluded MC-only mechs from the list, because newbies would want to try out C-bill versions first before actually spending real money on something that they may not like. Sorry, if that confused you, i should've made myself more clear from the first post. Conditions to be in this list are: any mech with ECM, capable of going at 100kph+ speed and doing something more than just a tickle. Plus it must be available to new players to try out.