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Right now, there is no penalty for ECM. More and more mechs are capable of it, and they proliferate on the battlefield because they deny the use of sensors other than seismic, which most can't afford or are still trying to grind the GXP to get. In today's modern battlefield-in 2015-a jammer can be locked on and homed on, combat aircraft do it all the time with air to air missiles. It doesn't make sense that a mech in 3052 would not have a similar capability.
Lock-on-jam would work like this. To have the capability, the mech has to have the Beagle or Clan Active Probe fitted. The HUD then shows a cue "C3" for normal information sharing mode, and "LOJ" for lock-on-jammer mode. When the B/CAP carrier getting sniped by mechs where there is no Dorito on the HUD, the pilot knows that he or she is in a jamming environment; also, some cue pops up on the HUD that says "jammer registered." Toggle key, say "L," and on your radar, any red or blue Doritos you had disappear as the system switches from C3 to LoJ mode. You then only see Doritos for ECM-equipped mechs operating in "Disrupt" mode, within a certain radius, say 750 meters and can lock them with the "R" key for LRM fire. You could add an element of risk...all of them are the same color, say green or something, and you can't gather target information on a jammer, so no way to tell how damaged he is or if he's friend or foe. But you can lock and fire on him...the risk for friendly fire is there, so jamfiring would require an indirect shooter to have his or her head in the game, toggle back and forth between modes before shooting, and verify who is where so they don't lock up a friendly ECM. Additionally, you lose C3 and seismic equipped mechs would lose seismic too, so the chance of getting sneaked up on by lights is high when you're concentrating on ECM carriers. Plus, if the LoJ feature is tied to the active probe, direct-fire builds like the Catapults K2 and Jester, or the Atlas D-DC, or other such mechs could also have access to the technology-it wouldn't be restricted only to LRMs.
Lock-on-Jam would prevent having to change how ECM works. But it would also require ECM users to consider that they are broadcasting their position when using it in "disrupt" mode, a trade off. Do you blanket your team at your own expense, or do you simply use it in "counter" mode? Or do you decide not to risk it at all? And for the ECM hunter, you're blind to the information environment while you're firing on or hunting jammers. Is the risk worth the payoff?
Edit: Figured out how to make a poll.
Edited by Chados, 29 August 2015 - 12:24 PM.
