25 replies to this topic

[Egg90]

Hi. So I scored a glorious duck! In my SSRM Javelin I couldn't get a lock on I guess due to ECM, but at times I couldn't even get the targetting circles to appear. Is this due to multiple ECMs stacking up? If so what are the rules on this?

[mogs01gt]

Egg90, on 23 February 2018 - 11:54 AM, said:

Hi. So I scored a glorious duck! In my SSRM Javelin I couldn't get a lock on I guess due to ECM, but at times I couldn't even get the targetting circles to appear. Is this due to multiple ECMs stacking up? If so what are the rules on this?

ECM bubble screwed you. This is why lock on weapons suck and shows why BAP is pointless at times.

[Grus]

bring a light tag and problem solved.

[mogs01gt]

Grus, on 23 February 2018 - 12:00 PM, said:

bring a light tag and problem solved.

Or they can just fix BAP to cancel out the ECM bubble. Looks like there was three mechs with ECM there.

[Nema Nabojiv]

You wont get locks within 90 meters of hostile ECM. Also tag or bap wont help iirc.

General rule is you need your own ECM on a streak boat, and you need to find that hotkey to turn counter mode.

[mogs01gt]

Nema Nabojiv, on 23 February 2018 - 12:08 PM, said:

You wont get locks within 90 meters of hostile ECM. Also tag or bap wont help iirc.

General rule is you need your own ECM on a streak boat, and you need to find that hotkey to turn counter mode.

120-150m, 90 for CLBAP

[El Bandito]

Nema Nabojiv, on 23 February 2018 - 12:08 PM, said:

You wont get locks within 90 meters of hostile ECM. Also tag or bap wont help iirc.

General rule is you need your own ECM on a streak boat, and you need to find that hotkey to turn counter mode.

Technically BAP helps up close while TAG works beyond 90 meters. I'd just chuck out a UAV.

Edited by El Bandito, 23 February 2018 - 12:18 PM.

[Nema Nabojiv]

El Bandito, on 23 February 2018 - 12:18 PM, said:

Technically BAP helps up close while TAG works beyond 90 meters. I'd just chuck out a UAV.

I often play streak ACW with BAP and it doesnt help within 90 meters.

Anyway, there's too much ECMs on the field right now and it makes already weak lock-on missiles even weaker. Something has to be done with it.

Edited by Nema Nabojiv, 23 February 2018 - 12:24 PM.

[mogs01gt]

Nema Nabojiv, on 23 February 2018 - 12:21 PM, said:

I often play streak ACW with BAP and it doesnt help within 90 meters.

BAP does nothing when you are stuck in an ECM Bubble.

[Metus regem]

Egg90, not to be a jerk or anything, but I have a simple solution to your issue:


Direct Fire weapons


Examples of these can be:
MG's
AC/s
LB/s
Lasers
SRM/s
PPC's

All of those are effective against targets under the protection ECM, even multiple ECM bubbles.

[Verilligo]

Nema Nabojiv, on 23 February 2018 - 12:21 PM, said:

I often play streak ACW with BAP and it doesnt help within 90 meters.

Anyway, there's too much ECMs on the field right now and it makes already weak lock-on missiles even weaker. Something has to be done with it.

It's just because the Lanner was released. It'll eventually correct itself, though when the Sun Spider comes out it'll probably have another uptick for a bit.

[BumbleBee]

BAP cancels the effect of the closest ECM within range
A second ECM will still have it's bubble working
TAG will cut through ECM and allow the targeted Mech to be locked and fired upon
NARC used against an ECM Mech will disable its ECM completely for the duration of the NARC Beacon

[Nema Nabojiv]

Verilligo, on 23 February 2018 - 12:51 PM, said:

It's just because the Lanner was released. It'll eventually correct itself, though when the Sun Spider comes out it'll probably have another uptick for a bit.

First the Arctic Wolf, then Thanatos, then Hellspawn, then BLanner, then Sun Spider, then Fafnir, then BAsp. Nope, it aint gonna fix itself, and I actualy see a pattern here. And that all is on top of hugely popular Hellbringers.

Though admittedly Spider gonna be the least problematic in regard of ECM.

[Metus regem]

Nema Nabojiv, on 23 February 2018 - 01:11 PM, said:

First the Arctic Wolf, then Thanatos, then Hellspawn, then BLanner, then Sun Spider, then Fafnir, then BAsp. Nope, it aint gonna fix itself, and I actualy see a pattern here. And that all is on top of hugely popular Hellbringers.

Though admittedly Spider gonna be the least problematic in regard of ECM.

And that is why I've gotten good with PPC's... 'cause frack ECM and learn how to aim.

[Splatshot]

Metus regem, on 23 February 2018 - 01:23 PM, said:

And that is why I've gotten good with PPC's... 'cause frack ECM and learn how to aim.

Which is great until your PPCs do not register hits due to the awesome hit reg.

[Metus regem]

Splatshot, on 23 February 2018 - 01:33 PM, said:

Which is great until your PPCs do not register hits due to the awesome hit reg.

Yea, I know... seen them pass right through mechs I've shot at before... What I've found is don't salvo fire them, stagger shot them, they seem to have better registration that way... also try to mount a tag near them to find hidden terrain hit boxes too...

[LordNothing]

i never use streaks when i play to win, but when i run them for fun i make sure i have bap, and tag (these can be the light versions, but bring a faster mech/engine in that case). i usually dont bring a backup weapon but it never hurts. a couple medium lasers for those situations where you have a cherry section but rnjesus is screwing you over. these are great to have in the final moments of a brawl when having an accurate and reliable weapon for the killing/crippling blow. i mostly dont do it because im running for fun and when i want to win i will use srms instead (or vomit) and take off the sensor gear for more ammo/tubes.

[Koniving]

Edit: TL;DR (or if it is too confusing)...
ECM shown is soft-countered. Soft countered ECM still has a 25% increase to the lock on time to it, making your locks slower and harder to achieve.

BAP/CAP works. If an ally was using BAP/CAP on the target, it is hard countered for the user, but only soft countered for you. (Demonstrated in second video, ally Locust has BAP, I do not, he gets locks, I struggle). Bring your own and avoid the problem.

Bring Artemis. You can lock 25% faster on targets you can see and it affects all lockon weapons...even though it shouldn't. Soft countered ECM will lock like a non-ECM victim with non-Artemis lock times. Weightless if just streaks without SRMs or LRMs.

Bring TAG. 25% faster. Provides its own soft counter. Its accelerated lock and their lock delay cancel each other out.

Bring an ER PPC. Instant hard counter for 5 seconds. Timer renews with each hit. If you don't bring your own, follow someone who has it. Hard counter counts for everyone.

The simplest thing, though, is just bring the 1.5 ton BAP or its Clan equivalent along.
(Though second video shows a soft countered ECM and the struggle to lock, the first video shows BAP used with the same streak build... No lock issues whatsoever against ECM users.)

Egg90, on 23 February 2018 - 11:54 AM, said:

Hi. So I scored a glorious duck! In my SSRM Javelin I couldn't get a lock on I guess due to ECM, but at times I couldn't even get the targetting circles to appear. Is this due to multiple ECMs stacking up? If so what are the rules on this?

Equip Artemis / BAP.

What you have are enemy ECMs that are soft-countered due to being able to target them, but not HARD countered. There are two types of counter. Soft lets you target them but does not disable the 25% increase to lock on time (makes your lock on time slower).

BAP would hard counter this for you, disabling the issue and that lock delay.

If you had Artemis equipped, by way of unintentional side effect, you will have 25% faster lock on speeds. The two would then cancel out, and you'd get normal lock on speed against ECM (and 25% faster lock ons against everyone else you can directly see; you can test by locking enemies you can see and those you can't; you'll always lock ones you can see faster. Test without Artemis, and you will lock at the same speed for seen and unseen).

A TAG is a more legitimate counter (than Artemis on streaks as Artemis isn't supposed to affect streaks/ATMs; it just does because they all use the same lock on mechanics; keep in mind Artemis does not affect their spread and that is the thing PGI fixed as Artemis used to affect the spread of MRMs and ATMs), the 25% faster lock on speed will negate their 25% slower lock on speed.

Some alternatives:
Fire a PPC Although it is debating which PPCs cause soft or hard counters, an ER PPC most assuredly provides a hard counter.

There are other counters but things such as UAVs provide soft counters, not hard. And nothing else affects the lock speed issue and thus they are not worth mentioning.

I personally discovered this during a match as a pair of Streak Locusts. To save tonnage only one of us carried BAP.


Skip to 12:30 for the stuff before the match, or a little ways into it. 15minutes or so for the actual encounter.
Side note: I forgot how ******* funny I used to be when I genuinely enjoyed this game. I miss these days.

Huh, actually no that isn't it. But that video is freaking hilarious. Also I put the BAP in there as I had already learned what I was going to say...

Here we go.


2:23 for the match. Literally the first encounter will have the discovery. Watch the second video for the encounter and the demonstration of finding your issue.

(NOTE: This is before they removed splash damage due to missiles doing up to 25 damage per missile against certain hitbox shapes. due to their use of the "grenade" script from CryEngine as stated when they provided the fix by removing splash.)

At the time (I do not know if this is still the case), BAP only provided the HARD counter for the user of BAP, meaning my partner could still get locks. I, however, experienced it as a soft counter... in other words his ECM provided me with a 25% slower lock on time.

Thus, carry BAP. OR carry TAG/equip Artemis/etc.

Edited by Koniving, 24 February 2018 - 01:13 AM.

[Brain Cancer]

Metus regem, on 23 February 2018 - 01:36 PM, said:

Yea, I know... seen them pass right through mechs I've shot at before... What I've found is don't salvo fire them, stagger shot them, they seem to have better registration that way... also try to mount a tag near them to find hidden terrain hit boxes too...

This is general. There's something in PGI's netcode that freaks out if too many of the same projectile (note: not lasers) hit a target at the same time, and it will end up canceling the entire thing.

Probably not working as intended.

[Egg90]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I hadn't realised that under 90m you can't normally start a lock against ECM. I thought once you were close enough to target the Mech (what used to be 180m), lock would always start but just take longer.
So 1v1 against ECM my effective range would be 90m-180m, over 180m I cannot target and under 90m I cannot lock? If a friendly Mech is close and targetting the ECM Mech then my range is from 90m to the max missile range.

I'm not a noob (1300 kills, I wont say deaths lol), I just haven't really used streaks before and as ATM/LRM are useless at 90m anyway I've never come across this before.

Some of you mentioned Narc as a counter but other detailed explanations didn't. With respect to my Javelin there is no laser mount for tag. I could get BAP with a smaller engine, or swap two streaks for a NARC (only 1 if smaller engine). To be honest though losing missiles or speed on this Mech for a specific encounter, I think I'd rather just know this limitation and run away from ECM Mechs!
I haven't used Narc before though so if it might work I might give it a go and explore its other uses too.

Edit: Oh I do have a TComp I on it so there's 1t I can use, or not.

Edited by Egg90, 24 February 2018 - 02:21 AM.