134 replies to this topic

[Cache]

Fate 6, on 27 November 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

I bought the A1 to actually build a balanced missile mech with LRMs and streaks. I upgraded it with a lot of tech to make it possible. I regret everything. ECM on Jenners will be in every game, and it will literally make that mech a meatshield. Who needs to shoot my ears off when they can't do anything anymore?

Make sure your teammates kill everything carrying ECM. They won't be hard to spot. Problem solved.

[Kinilan]

Khobai, on 27 November 2012 - 06:07 PM, said:

No your counter-argument just makes it appear like you have absolutely no clue what youre talking about. ECM prevents all targetting beyond 200m. LRMs cannot do damage under 180m. So LRMs are rendered completely useless by ECM. That is not overreacting, that is a fact. LRMs will not be useable at all unless ECM is nerfed.

Go read the ECM post. TAG and NARC work outside the bubble. LRMs can also be dumb-fired. Just because LRMs can't be used in any situation doesn't mean they can't be used at all.

[hammerreborn]

Khobai, on 27 November 2012 - 06:07 PM, said:

No your counter-argument just makes it appear like you have absolutely no clue what youre talking about. ECM prevents all targetting beyond 200m. LRMs cannot do damage under 180m. So LRMs are rendered completely useless by ECM. That is not overreacting, that is a fact. LRMs will not be useable at all unless ECM is nerfed.

And you're the one who has absolutely no clue what you are talking about. LRMs are still useful provided a) you use team work, you use team work, and c) you use team work. TAG, focusing the ECM mech, or using your own ECM mechs to counter theirs are all ways to still have LRMs be effective.

It'll probably break boating LRMs and SSRMs, which is only a good thing...

Quote

Seems to me the mech bubbling the enemy assaults would be the Atlas. The Jenner would be over doing what they do best while your teams heavies/assaults scream 'Get him off me! Get him off me!'.

Probably, and how hard is it to focus down and hit the Atlas.

It's always the counter argument for weapons that if weapon a is "overpowered" (i.e. streakscats/guasscats) has always been focus the mech, I'm not sure why "focus the jenner" (which you know, everyone does anyways), "focus the atlas", or "focus the commando" are all of a sudden completely foreign concepts an invalid in the discussion.

[G4M3R]

My Atlas D-DC just became a ninja. Fun times hunting Streak Cats now.

[jajsamurai]

Is it just me or did all the streak cat whiners miss the phrase "It takes twice as long to achieve missile lock"
They never said you would be unable to use missiles, just that it would take twice as long.

I still agree that ECM is over powered. Beagle active probe should partially counter some of the abilities, and artemis, tag laser or narc counter some others. These don't need to counter ECM entirely, but a reduced effect from ecm would be fine. It would give people a reason to use narc and tag.

I would like to see BAP increase your target range against an ECM from 200M to 500M. This would make a BAP equiped teamate very usefull against ECM to spot for the missile boats. He could spot from outside of the range where he loses the ability to send that target info to his teammates. The 20 meter margin you currently have for spotting will not be usable, as you can't maintain that distance consistently in battle conditions.

I really like the thought of electronic warfare in MechWarrior. But if ECM is the only EW item in the game it isn't very interesting. BAP, NARC, TAG, ARTEMIS, C3, Targeting Comptuers and ECM should all interact in complex ways, reducing each others effectiveness, or synergizing with each other to reduce the effectiveness of the enemys eletronics.

The way its done now, only ECM can counter ECM, and that isn't very interesting. Let BAP and other electronics have partial counters to ECM or reduce ECM effects for the mech that equips them.

Edited by jajsamurai, 27 November 2012 - 08:52 PM.

[Axeman1]

G4M3R, on 27 November 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

My Atlas D-DC just became a ninja. Fun times hunting Streak Cats now.

What streak cats?

[AC]

How the hell do you fit ECM on a commando anyway? it appears to only go in the head, and there is only 1 free slot there. hence, no ECM for the commando.

[topgun505]

While I run the 7D regularly I'm not complaining ... but I do admit I was surprised.

There is absolutely NO reason at all to run the 7K as it is the same thing as the 7D but with 1 missile hardpoint instead of 2. The difference in the fluff and here is that it comes with CASE standard .... big whoop in a game where it can be easily removed (which everyone does since there is little point in an I.S. mech running an XL engine).

The only thing that would have made the 7K worth taking is if they had made it the variant able to mount the ECM so that was the one I was expecting would get it.

Ashnod, on 27 November 2012 - 03:05 PM, said:

Why does the JR7-D have the ability to equip this?.. really?.. the best variant of the Jenner? good thing otherwise the Raven might of had a spot over the Jenner... >_>

[197mmCannon]

Jenner with ecm is THE pugstomper mech now.

[Keyne]

I'm really pissed I can't get this on my Cicada-2A!!!! I don't really want to have to buy another one.

[hammerreborn]

jajsamurai, on 27 November 2012 - 08:13 PM, said:

Tag laser is an infrared laser designator. it works on passive emissions (light) it doesn't make any sense that an ECM could disrupt it. Does ECM stop you from using IR imaging or night vision? No. So it should have no effect on a tag laser which uses the exact same technology. It makes no sense from a physics perspective.

TAG works as normal and actually elimates the "hidden" bubble EXCEPT when you're firing the TAG from INSIDE the enemy bubble. Which makes sense, as the ECM is disrupting your electronics.

[Lightfoot]

Yes, that's completely ridiculous. Look I have an INVINCABLE=ON button!

[jajsamurai]

hammerreborn, on 27 November 2012 - 08:48 PM, said:

TAG works as normal and actually elimates the "hidden" bubble EXCEPT when you're firing the TAG from INSIDE the enemy bubble. Which makes sense, as the ECM is disrupting your electronics.

I think you missed my point. Look at current real weaponry that uses a target designator laser to "paint" a target for precission guided munitions. what is going on is that I hit the target with a light beam of a very specific wavelength, then the missile can "see" the reflected light by filtering out everything other than that wavelength and is guided to the target. I as the target designator, do not have to communicate with the smart munition or shooter in any way. the system is entirely passive, and should be unaffected by a loss of communication between the target designator and the person firing the missile.

ECM should have no effect on TAG whether the TAG equiped mech is inside the bubble or not.

[Fedifensor]

hammerreborn, on 27 November 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

And you're the one who has absolutely no clue what you are talking about. LRMs are still useful provided a) you use team work, you use team work, and c) you use team work. TAG, focusing the ECM mech, or using your own ECM mechs to counter theirs are all ways to still have LRMs be effective.

It'll probably break boating LRMs and SSRMs, which is only a good thing...

I think you're missing a few obvious consequences of this...

Yes, ECM can be countered by another mech with counter-ECM. That requires mechs with ECM as an option. The only 45+ ton mech with ECM as an option is the Atlas AS7-D-DC. Expect to see a lot of these mechs on the battlefield. If you get three of them traveling together, you'll need at least three of your own mechs to get within 180m - which is a dangerous proposition for any light if the Atlas pilots are reasonably competent. You can try focus-fire on an Atlas if you want...but I don't think you're going to have much luck.

Missile boats are part of the Mechwarrior universe. They're already very expensive to operate compared to the direct-fire alternatives, and they become completely useless against ECM. Bringing an Catapult A1 on the battlefield becomes suicidal - the only viable build becomes 6xSRM6, and if you can't find your foes on radar until they're sniping at your arms, even that is of limited use. Expect LRMs to disappear from the game entirely, and sniper mechs (who don't need radar to shoot you) to rule the battlefield.

The traditional counter to ECM in Battletech is the Beagle Active Probe. Despite being the same weight, the BAP is 100% negated by ECM...which makes no sense whatsoever. Likewise, why buy modules that boost scanning range if a single ECM can cloak an entire team's approach? Even a 25% boost in scan range only increase the range to 250m, and a light mech can cover that 70m of distance until you're within ECM range in a few seconds. In short, ECM is removing these options from the game, because why spend millions of credits and extra weight on your mech for something that will be useless most of the time?

The consequences of NOT having ECM on your mech are so dire that everyone will be drifting to the models that have access to it. This will reduce the variety of mechs in the game considerably, as well as the loadout options. The Cicada CDA-3M and Atlas AS7-D-DC will be the majority of the mechs you see on the battlefield, the other ECM mechs will be slightly less common, and the non-ECM mechs will be restricted to trial mechs or people who haven't gotten the message.

[Qarnage]

Kaijin, on 27 November 2012 - 05:20 PM, said:

That would defeat the purpose of the build, which is to be able to fire one's LRMs in peace without being chewed to pieces by the Jenner God. You want to talk about horrifically bad imbalance - start with that particular 35 tons of death. Every mech has to be examined when being designed, and the question asked, "But can I fight a Jenner with it?" It's insane. But clearly, the Jenner is sombody's favorite mech at PGI and so it will never be nerfed. And whatdoyouknow - coming soon...Jenners with ECM!

I heard the guy was Garth Erlam, and that he was the bridge between our threads and the devs. Oh oh.

[SteelPaladin]

AC, on 27 November 2012 - 08:24 PM, said:

How the hell do you fit ECM on a commando anyway? it appears to only go in the head, and there is only 1 free slot there. hence, no ECM for the commando.

ALL mechs at the current tech level only have one slot in the head, so the "3 slot, head only" bit is obviously just a bug in their placeholder implementation.

[Roland]

Khobai, on 27 November 2012 - 05:03 PM, said:

ECM should not reduce detection range to 200m. All that does is make LRMs completely useless. Cant use them past 200m and cant use them within 180m. WTF?!

1) ECM at MOST should reduce detection range to 600m so LRMs still have a window to be useful in.
2) ECM should not prevent nearby enemy mechs from getting missile locks either.

Fix those two things and ECM will be fine.

There is a thing called Tag laser.

It negates ECM hiding a target from you.

Use tag lasers.

[Dr Killinger]

Oh man, this is gonna be good! This adds a bit of height to both the skill and teamwork ceilings, and balances a certain build involving missiles that don't fire very far, but lock on...

[Lokust Davion]

Axeman1, on 27 November 2012 - 08:20 PM, said:

What streak cats?

My streak cat shall bring terror to those that dont have ECM . I will continue to use streak cat until I can't top the scoreboard at a regular basis anymore. You have ECM? Fine my teammates will provide me with ECCM.

Edited by Lokust Davion, 27 November 2012 - 09:49 PM.

[Fedifensor]

Roland, on 27 November 2012 - 09:22 PM, said:

There is a thing called Tag laser.

It negates ECM hiding a target from you.

Use tag lasers.

Which have a range of 450 m, and won't work once inside ECM (180 m). So, you've just reduced the LRM's range of 1000m to 450m...assuming a light mech doesn't get to within 180m while you're trying to fire at that Atlas...