2028 replies to this topic

[DocBach]

I'm thinking a good limit to ECM would be to allow it only on variants that carry it in the technical readouts - right now, just the RVN-3L Raven should get it. It gives the Raven a specific niche to fill - with the D-DC able to carry it, there isn't really any need for the Raven beyond ninja-capping.

[Ronin13m]

Josef Nader, on 06 December 2012 - 11:45 AM, said:

It's a fair point, but I'd counter with "he shouldn't mount 6 streak missiles on the same mech." Diversify your build, slap some dumbfire SRMs onto your A1 so you can at least fight back. If you're going to boat weapons that can be completely shut down by ECM, you'll get what's coming to you.

Which if you noticed I mentioned at the end of my post. But I do disagree with the fact that they can not fire at all with out the lock. If you are being jambed then there is no reason why the fire control in your mech would not get a false positive and allow you to fire with out the tracking thus the A1 would have effectivly been carrying 6 SRM2 racks with expensive ammo.

[icervoid]

Bad idea ECM was not
But with lagging and fps drops streak + lrm is best option (even so , is hard to have streak lock)
So switching to lasers and cannons will be very annoying

[TheSteelRhino]

ECM is bad for the game RIGHT NOW. Why?

It came at a bad time...partially because of classless matchmaking in 8v8
******************************************************************************************
Only 4 mechs mount it. In game after game after game of 8v8 we are seeing all 4or 5 atlas DC and 2 or 3 ecm scout teams just charge for the cap (yes using terrain) but they are virtually undetectable, and if you are trying to use a balanced force with the current small maps you just don't have room to wear them down. It's just to much armour.

Map size and Game type:
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Now, if there was no Cap (ie..deathmatch)...faster mechs could extend and escape...make use of bigger maps, etc. TACTICS would again be more effective. All Atlas teams (even with ECM) would now have to contend with Medium and heavy mechs that don't have ECM that are faster and can hit from long range and slowly grind them down. With current small maps that's not even an option.

The conclusion
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With the current maps, game type, and classless matchmaking I can only conclude that ECM was introduced too soon. And it's a bit overpowered. Beagle Probe should probably still work, but with reduced range, as a possible partial counter to ECM. TAG is only a partial counter.

Also, I really think it's bad for the game as everyone wants to run an Ecm mech! There should be a negative that goes with it. For example, if you are disrupting, your own targeting is impacted? Maybe that's not a good choice, but there should be a negative to it. You blind the enemy but only by blinding yourself perhaps? Or maybe just reduced sensor range, so you must be reliant upon your teammates.

Edited by Rhinehardt Ritter, 06 December 2012 - 11:59 AM.

[Josef Nader]

Ronin13m, on 06 December 2012 - 11:56 AM, said:

Which if you noticed I mentioned at the end of my post. But I do disagree with the fact that they can not fire at all with out the lock. If you are being jambed then there is no reason why the fire control in your mech would not get a false positive and allow you to fire with out the tracking thus the A1 would have effectivly been carrying 6 SRM2 racks with expensive ammo.

It's canon that Streaks won't fire without a target lock. It's their biggest downside.

[R3B0]

I think ECM and the interesting new play style and balance factors it brings has been a great implementation. Tactics are evolving, allowing for new builds to come into their own. Ive seen more build diversity in the past few days than in the months ive been playing.

[DeaconW]

BiffAlexander, on 06 December 2012 - 12:21 PM, said:

Ive seen more build diversity in the past few days than in the months ive been playing.

This is a joke, right?

[Texugo87]

So far I am liking the ECM. I PUG, and do not play an ECM equipped 'mech. My last few drops have been great fun, I'm generally seeing less steam rolling and more tactical play.

I don't think I've gotten enough experience with the ECM to make any suggestions about tweaking the way it functions in game, however I do have one thought on refining it.

An ECM suite is a complex and expensive piece of tech, I haven't run it so I don't know if it is but is should be expensive to buy, and expensive to maintain. Interfacing with that: it should be fragile. ECM should be able to be destroyed without stripping the armour off the section of the mech it is installed in. This would make it easier to neutralize once identified.

-Logically it would have some sort of external antenna array, which could be pin-point targeted, or damaged by missile fire, etc.
-There is a fair bit of cannon about PPC blasts wreaking havoc with a 'mech's electronics, several simultaneous or near simultaneous PPC blasts could fry the ECM, one PPC blast could knock it out for a few seconds, etc. This would be a nice boost to the usefulness of PPC's, which seem under used at the moment.
-Maybe even knockdowns and collisions when implemented could carry a chance of damaging ECM

[ReD3y3]

I support ECMs current iteration.

It has brought more depth and variety to what we run in our group drops.

ECM is fine as it is.

If any change is made. Please buff TAG to counter ECM effects.

TAG range increased
TAG linger increased (up to 3 seconds from 1 second ro whatever)

[AlanEsh]

Josef Nader, on 06 December 2012 - 12:01 PM, said:

It's canon that Streaks won't fire without a target lock. It's their biggest downside.

And ECM here is operating in a canon fashion?

[Xatiiv]

SteelLynx, on 04 December 2012 - 03:29 PM, said:

Well, played a few games with ECM now. Didn't even know, that my D-DC is one of those who can mount it. I just added it to see its effects.

I didn't see any. Really, I didn't see anything at all. First, I went LRM boat. As soon as I locked a target, I lost it again. I don't know how many shots went right into the wall next to me. Well okay, switched to SSRM, Ultra-AC5, LLaser build. Same thing actually, Streaks almost useless. As where my lasers, blindly fireing at random hit locations. With screen shaking from AC fire (which should at least be reduced for AC/2 and /5 fire) you can't reliably hit anything. You can almost go afk, it doesn't matter much.

I love ECM, and it should be part of the game. Definitely. But this is way too much. Maybe it should further delay receiving target info and lock on time with missiles. I found LRMs to be overpowered before this patch, now they're pretty much useless as any PuG will have ECM. And to counter it with Tag ... well, a LRM boat wouldn't want to get that close to an enemy mech.

I'd say, reduce the effect of ECM slightly. And limit its use to very few mechs. I don't care if any lore special mech had ECM equipped. It just ruins the freedom of mech choice, if you have to pick a certain mech to provide ECM. And I would expect every team to have at least 3 ECM nowadays.

Try using Thermal Vision, there is a reason for it being in the game, Lights need to equip TAG-s now to do their job efficiently, no one was using TAG before, now it has a game changing role. I think ECM is working just fine. I personally did not have any issues in PUG even against 3-4 ECM D-DC s.

[ReD3y3]

Xatiiv, on 06 December 2012 - 12:31 PM, said:

Try using Thermal Vision, there is a reason for it being in the game, Lights need to equip TAG-s now to do their job efficiently, no one was using TAG before, now it has a game changing role. I think ECM is working just fine. I personally did not have any issues in PUG even against 3-4 ECM D-DC s.

Agreed

Use the tools available to couter ECM.

[Azantia]

DeaconW, on 06 December 2012 - 12:22 PM, said:

This is a joke, right?

It must be deacon, Cause I just spit out my soda all over the keyboard when I read it....either he is the dull tool in the box, or he doesnt play 8 mans.

ReD3y3, on 06 December 2012 - 12:23 PM, said:

I support ECMs current iteration.

It has brought more depth and variety to what we run in our group drops.

ECM is fine as it is.

If any change is made. Please buff TAG to counter ECM effects.

TAG range increased
TAG linger increased (up to 3 seconds from 1 second ro whatever)

Yes because all 8 man drops need to consist of ONLY 4 designs in order to be competitive....

Do you [REDACTED] even think before you post? seriously.

[Tesunie]

Okay, I couldn't read everything between my last post and this one, but I wanted to address a few things.

Dax Paxton, on 05 December 2012 - 10:33 PM, said:

My only thought on ECM is that the Atlas should not be able to use it. Giving something of that size ECM makes them nearly impossible to take down 1 v 1 or even 1 v 2 or 3. ECM should be restricted to medium or smaller chassis and I like having only select models able to carry it. In this way, LRMs and Streaks still have a chance because the smaller mechs can be removed from the fight easier with accurate fire.

As far as the function of ECM goes, as a Raven pilot, I love the dynamic.

ECM was actually in a couple of classes of Atlas in lore, books, card games, etc. It does belong there, but right now ECM is blocking every lock weapon, instead of just hindering them and slowing them up. ECM was placed onto an Atlas to help it move into a better position on the field without being swarmed as a high priority target. This is for lore, not really for game balance. I feel if they added in some count measures to ECM, an Altas with ECM wouldn't be such a big deal anymore. But, I do understand what you mean... I'm just someone who appreates lore and how closely this game seems to like trying to stick to it. Right on down to ECM only being able to go onto select models of mechs. (Though I do wish it was advertised more in the mech purchasing screen...)

Morikuro, on 05 December 2012 - 10:58 PM, said:

It is radiating signals, that's what all expressions of emissions across the electromagnetic spectrum are. Some are in the visual wavelength that we can see, others are infrared, the infamous gamma/beta/alpha radiation, etc. Because it's radiating signals it can make itself a target for sufficiently advanced ECCM, and that's something that ECM can encounter in real life already. Also, if it was jamming one band, then the opposing team could just hop to another and keep jumping frequencies as much as required. If it's barrage jamming all of the bands, then why isn't the other team affected? A really heavy, wide-band jamming environment would degrade everyone's sensors to some degree.

As for it being dangerous to unshielded people, that's just a matter of the emitter's power. Sonic weapons/lasers/etc are just weaponized emitters that have strong enough emissions that they do damage. Radar can certainly be dangerous, military radars can operate in high kilowatt ranges and has all kinds of rules on how you operate it, think of what battletech sensors could be engineered to do with the power of a fusion reactor (at least double digit megawatt power generation) behind them.

Radiation of the kind you are talking about was different from the kind I was responding to. Yes, any kind of sensor emition is a type of radiation. Light is too. However, the person I responded too made it sound like it was nucleare radiation slowly frying people. It's not that kind of interfeance.

As for it not effecting allies, I'm going to assume that you are going to ECM all other open channels but the one your team is using. Having your enemies find and decript that channel for their own use would be difficult. Also, it's probably a coded transmition that could also be on all channels, that your allies comm systems would decode and clear out. There is also line to line, tight beam transmition. Not good for on the move, but to mechs could activate this comm system, talk, without any fear of being intercepted or blocked (except my a physical mass). I'm going to guess sensors could be encripted as well to filter out the planed frequency(s) being used to disrupt enemy sensors.

Of course, this is going off my own limited knowledge. I don't know how a mech sensor system works or gather data.

Kyone Akashi, on 05 December 2012 - 11:08 PM, said:

I intentionally included the link to the Sarna article in my post because of such concerns. Really, did nobody click it? :/

The missiles do not lock on to the TAG's dot but only receive data from transmission. It is likely a matter of efficiency - Target Acquisition Gear is not standard, so Inner Sphere manufacturers will not just equip each and every missile churned out by the factories with in-field adaptable optical equipment (as every single LRM you launch would have to be coded to the pulse-level of the TAG) just in case someone might drag an infrared painter around.

Instead, TAG is used as a sort of rangefinder where a BattleMech such equipped projects the dot onto a target, then compares that position to its own and transmits the data to the rest of the unit, where it is used to augment the standard data stream between launcher and missile, correcting minor flaws and so assuring increased accuracy.

This is BattleTech canon.

As for your link, I know I didn't see it because I have not looked and read every post on this thread. So sorry. But that doesn't sound about right for the munition, but what about the other mechs system that could see the infared beam refraction and target from that (provided it has line of sight to the TAGed target)? It should still help a little to counter ECM. At least in my opinion. Of course, TAG was more often used in the hands of infanrty in Battletech (though yes, there was Mech mounted versions of the system), as they where more likely to sneek into place, and then mark the targets. Of course, TAG was usually more commonly used with the much larger, artillery missile warheads (can't recall what they were called, but they are big and explode really well). Though they did see use for LRMs as well.

[Not a Number]

Marcus Tanner, on 06 December 2012 - 11:32 AM, said:

Not a Number, on 06 December 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

I don't believe ECM actually makes a mech invisible according to the BT rules. It only really affects anything within its range of 180M. Correct me if I'm wrong. If it would also prevent missiles from being tracked all the way to the target – without a TAG countering that – like I and some others suggested, it would still be effective against missile attacks for both the ECM equipped mech and its nearby allies inside the bubble.

[...]

You are not correct.

In the tabletop by normal game rules, if your opponent does not mount Artemis or NARC or C3 or Beagle, then Guardian ECM does nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a little bit. It *only* counters dedicated electronic warfare equipment. It has no effect on TAG or targeting computers (see Total Warfare page 134, the current iteration of the tabletop rules).

A guidebook for additional rules called Tactical Operations offers additional rules for double-blind games (page 220-224), where it is possible to have unidentified sensor blips and the like. This is closer to what we are using in MWO. Under double-blind rules, if you have line of sight to a target then you can see it and spot it and target it with LRMs and the like, at no penalty, regardless of ECM. Visual spotting range (Mk1 eyeball) is pegged at 1800m under normal daylight conditions, and 900m under light fog or snowfall.

Under double-blind rules, it is possible to get a sensor blip for an enemy unit that is not in anyone's LOS. This is unreliable, but can go out as far as 720m (1080m with a Beagle Active Probe). Hills, but not other kinds of obstruction, block this indirect sensor blips completely. Hills do not block a Beagle Active Probe. Other forms of obstruction make it more difficult to detect things without LOS, even affecting Beagle (Hills don't even slow Beagle down, but trees/buildings make it harder, yes I know it's weird). Under foggy or rainy or dark conditions it is possible to not have LOS to a target even if there are no obstructions in the way, but sensors can be used to find such hidden units anyway.

In double-blind, ECM makes it harder to acquire sensor blips without LOS, but only so long as the spotting unit is within the jamming radius of the ECM suite. If the spotting unit has LOS, then ECM does nothing. If the spotting unit does not have LOS but is outside jamming range (180m), then ECM does nothing.

Thanks for the info! The last sentence was actually just a suggestion to keep ECM reasonably effective against missiles in MWO without the huge reduction in sensor range ECM currently also causes. Whether ECM should or should not affect standard LRMs outside of its bubble is of course debatable, especially when the tabletop version does nothing of the sort.

Was I correct in assuming tabletop ECM does not actually make your mech undetectable and does not have any effect outside of its 180M bubble like it currently does in MWO? Because that's my biggest problem with the way PGI implemented it.

Edited by Not a Number, 06 December 2012 - 02:29 PM.

[Ronin13m]

Josef Nader, on 06 December 2012 - 12:01 PM, said:

It's canon that Streaks won't fire without a target lock. It's their biggest downside.

I want to agree with you but I thought the rules stated that a streak used under the effect of an ECM functioned as a standard SRM. I will have to check my table top books when I get home.

[AlanEsh]

So what do you guys think would be the effects of not allowing ECM to stack? Would this lower the number of mechs sporting it? Would people still bring 4x Atlas DC to 8 man groups?

Seems like if it only takes one counter-ECM mech to nullify a stack of 4 AS7-DCs, then the tendency would be to stop fielding so many ECM mechs.

And on a totally different note...
ECM should take about 10 heatsinks to run constantly. It should build up heat like a ************. And it should weigh 3 or 4 tons.

[Jchan1e]

If it were bulkier by a ton and a crit slot, or if there was a counter that wasn't also an ECM, I'd be okay with it. Everybody says teamwork counters it, and i agree with that, but for PUGers like me, it's next to impossible to actually communicate with your teammates other than making that blip noise by targeting. As chat always makes you a sitting duck while you're typing, I can't call for help or even inform my teammates of the 4 D-DCs I just ran into until after I've been reduced to widely distributed chunks of scrap metal by their perfectly functioning missile weapons.

As for build diversity. With the patch right before this one, I saw plenty of lasers, ballistic builds, streak missiles, and LRM builds in use, but now people are dropping missiles left and right because Streaks are only useful in a 90m band, and LRMs can't hardly be spotted for. And the only direct counter to ECM is another ECM, so if you get dropped into a team without one, you get facerolled EVERY TIME.

On the flipside, it doesn't need to be nerfed into oblivion like the loud, raging players seem to want. If it did one less thing than it does now, and/or had a decent counter other than itself, I'd be ecstatic. Disabling broadcasting but not targeting, or making TAG or BAP a more effective counter, or even implementing a decent voice chat system for us PUGers to communicate. But until they do that, it's way too much of a no-brainer Easymode encouraging massive overuse of the 4 variants that can mount it.

I can't help but wonder why PGI decided to change EMC so much from TT/Canon anyway.

[Resinoid]

After reading this exhausting thread it can mostly be summed up as ECM is too OP, LRM and SSRM are useless, no iff info on enemies. To get a few things out of the way yes i have only been playing pugs but after about a hundred games with/without groups or in teams with/without ECM my experience as follows:

1. Diversify your mech don't relay only on lock-on weapons. (Yes, it is easy to use, it is almost a guaruntee hit but at least learn some basic piloting skills, evasions and tatics.)

2. Tight formations with ECM are the easiest to hit for long range shoot and forget weapons like ppc and ballistics (Is very hard to miss when you have a cluster of mechs together)

3. Alpha strike is critical when you run by a light (For some reason light ALWAYS runs toward you at the beginning of a match if not force them to come to you.)

4. Get use to reading the hud info such as the range to target and always get ready to fire if you have ssrms or lrm since the ecm have a range of 180m and ssrm have a max range of 270 and lrm have a min of 150. (NO one would just let you shoot them so anticipate windows of oppertunites and keep tracks of distance.)

5. Use the terrans to your advantage (It applies to all classes even if they have ssrms and you don't because it takes time to lock-on)

6. Shoot first ask later. All friendlies will have an id when within visual range if not shoot it. If you have problems seeing them use thermal it will helpto see mechs from surrounding areas.

With all the critics, for ECM, most of them i find unrealistic. In war when one side have overwhelming advantage a counter will always be developed if not think of the counter to it or make it less effective. This game is mostly about teamwork where you support each other in formation or though tactics but there are times where you will have to go solo behind enemy lines so stop relaying on auto lock weapons where you can fire from a safe distance and let your teammates soak up the dmg since they are the worst in alpha strike if not figure out how and when you can use it.

One thing i do agree with earlier posts and needs to change is the ability to use ssrm or lrm with TAG even under ECM as it should not interfer with the laser.

Finally people should really stop complaining about something just because they can no longer get kills easily and not willing to change their tactics. Buckup and try different things before crying about being unfair.

[Electric Mayhem]

Nothing that hasn't been said, but my take:

ECM is a good concept. Right now, the umbrella is WAY too big in terms of shielding other mechs, and a bit too "do everything" in how much of the game it effects.

Suggestions (some which may not be feasible):
1. Reduce the umbrella of coverage for other mechs to 90m or less.
2. Allow ECMs in Counter mode to knock out ECMs in Disrupt mode out to 700m
3. Reduce the effectiveness of the shielding for each additional mech covered by a Disrupt field- i.e. detection at longer range if ECM has to cover 4 mechs versus 2.
4. ECM on lights only.