6 replies to this topic

[Mcchuggernaut]

So, I haven't played in almost a year. I got burnt out on the game, but the new tech sounded interesting so I have been playing again for a few days. I immediately noticed that it is extremely difficult to target light mechs now. So I figured, hey, I'll just mount a TAG laser. Energy hardpoints are over-abundant and TAG is light and small. It has great range, and I can even get the odd TAG c-bill bonus. And it worked great. I was locking and chasing off all the sneaky little ankle-biters pretty consistently. But then I ran into this particular Locust pilot. The guy decided to circle me at basically point-blank range right next to my entire team. I painted him with the TAG laser expecting a quick lock, my teammates to see the little bugger, and blow him away for me.

But...

Nothing. I just could not lock this guy. He was very obviously painted with the TAG laser, but he was able to practically face-hug me with the beam on him and stay completely un-targetable. And what's even weirder was the TAG laser seemed to work just fine on every other stealthed opponent I had attempted to use it on up until this particular time. I went so far as to try looking up both TAG and stealth armor on the MWO wiki, and could not even find an entry for stealth armor, nor did the page covering TAG have anything to say about it. I know this is technically the newcomer's forum, but I certainly feel like a noob after a year not playing and coming back to a completely baffling and obscure game mechanic I can't find adequate information about.

So what was going on here?

Edited by Mcchuggernaut, 31 July 2017 - 11:40 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

TAG NARC and PPC fire should disable Stealth Armor as long as they are held on target

from the hotfix patch notes
https://mwomercs.com...or-27-jul-2017/

Quote

Stealth Armor

• Fixed an issue where the Stealth Armor HUD icon was not appearing when active.
• Fixed an issue where 'Mechs with active Stealth Armor could be targeted by Turrets.
• Fixed an issue where UAV, Counter ECM, Beagle Active Probe, and Clan Active Probe could ignore effects of active enemy Stealth Armor. A table has been provided below conveying the impact of equipment on active enemy Stealth Armor.

Equipment
Disables Stealth Armor
Counter ECM
No
BAP/CAP
No
UAV
No
Tag
Yes
NARC
Yes
PPC
Yes


• Fixed an issue where 'Mechs with active Stealth Armor could could still capture gameplay objectives. As of this hot-fix 'Mechs with active Stealth Armor will be unable to interact with the following objects:

Assault base
Conquest capture points
Domination beacon
Escort ECM towers

Scouting Intel beacons
Incursion Generators and Towers

Disabling Stealth Armor will immediately begin the capture process if other conditions don't prevent it, such as enemies also being in capture radius or when taking damage.

[Mcchuggernaut]

Rogue Jedi, on 31 July 2017 - 12:24 PM, said:

TAG NARC and PPC fire should disable Stealth Armor as long as they are held on target

from the hotfix patch notes
https://mwomercs.com...or-27-jul-2017/

That's what I thought, so why couldn't I lock this guy? Very strange...

[Alexander of Macedon]

If it was a Locust at close range, my guess would be that you never held the TAG on target long enough to actually get a lock. If you're just flicking it across him in millisecond durations the client might not have updated his status long enough to pop the icon. Notice how when you TAG a non-SA 'mech while locked on the TAG icon instantly vanishes when it slips off target? Same here, except you're trying to break stealth long enough to get a lock, which is quite difficult when it's a Locust weaving around you at 165kph. Especially so if everyone is at 100ms ping or so and you're only able to get the TAG on him for a small fraction of a second as he passes in front of the weapon.

At least that's my instinct hearing about it at second-hand.

[Mcchuggernaut]

Alexander of Macedon, on 31 July 2017 - 04:02 PM, said:

If it was a Locust at close range, my guess would be that you never held the TAG on target long enough to actually get a lock. If you're just flicking it across him in millisecond durations the client might not have updated his status long enough to pop the icon. Notice how when you TAG a non-SA 'mech while locked on the TAG icon instantly vanishes when it slips off target? Same here, except you're trying to break stealth long enough to get a lock, which is quite difficult when it's a Locust weaving around you at 165kph. Especially so if everyone is at 100ms ping or so and you're only able to get the TAG on him for a small fraction of a second as he passes in front of the weapon.

At least that's my instinct hearing about it at second-hand.

I suppose that's possible, but I have been playing since the days of open beta, and am no stranger to dealing with circling lights and the tactics to use against them. I put my back against a rock and waited for him to pass in front of me, instead of spinning around like a fool. At least 3 times I had the beam on him for a solid couple seconds, and wasn't even given the OPTION to lock him. Maybe there was a lag spike or something? But I didn't see any tells like rubber-banding, stuttering, or a connection warning. Or there could be an undiscovered bug with extremely fast mechs and stealth armor? The new tech hasn't been out that long, and they are still finding bugs all the time. Anyway, at least I know for sure that I was correct in trying to use TAG to cut stealth armor, and it is supposed to nullify it as I thought.

[Alexander of Macedon]

In that case, who knows. Probably lag, yeah, which would be exacerbated by him being a fast-mover since the differences between clients and the server would be greater. And frankly the MWO servers seem to been pretty unreliable these days.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

It could have been two lights with ECM near you, I think the ECM of stealt armor counts as one unit. So two ECM enemies under their bubble of 90 meters, they are immune to be targetted by any single mech, unless they are both countered at same time.