33 replies to this topic

[JuiceKeeper]

nice text, and i agree
personaly i see best way to counter ecm to label it on battle grid so everybody else knows who and where got it (also u have to have team which understands what u saying not like last night when screaming on everybody ecm squad is allready on d7 in forest and everybody is watching water like nothing happens. that one was rly quick game ) then focus fire also helps and best of all thermal at least for me
I started to use it much more often on different maps to get at least count how many mechs are under ECM umbrella and where are they.

[LynxFury]

I think the recommendation misses one of the most important game changers even if using direct fire mechs (which aren't "old school" by the way).

A lance covered by ECMs huge area effectively can absorb much more damage because none of the medium or long range direct fire mechs can pull up their damage data and take precision shots against already thin parts of their target's armor. Guys with ballistics are making big holes in armor that his team mate's a few hundred meters away with lasers can't capitalize on. The effect is dramatic.

PGI could probably confirm by analysis of % of direct fire killing shots or kills/damage...particularly for the more precise weapons such as large lasers.

Edited by LynxFury, 11 December 2012 - 08:45 AM.

[Snib]

Wrenchfarm, on 11 December 2012 - 04:46 AM, said:

Not sure how the interaction with TAG and ECM works. Sometimes it seems flagging a guy with ECM will let me eventually get a lock at a slower rate, other times ECM can't be defeated. Not sure if it is a multiple overlapping ECM thing, or a range thing (perhaps being within the 180m of ECM umbrella nullifies the TAG). If anyone can shed some light on this I would appreciate it.

If you're within an ECM disrupt bubble your TAG has no effect. Which is why tagging only works against bad ECM pilots.

[Theodor Kling]

Snib, on 11 December 2012 - 10:00 AM, said:

If you're within an ECM disrupt bubble your TAG has no effect. Which is why tagging only works against bad ECM pilots.

Or from range Tag got much bigger range than ECM.

One point about comunication: I am not a clan ( meaning merc corp) player. So I oug. But PUg comunication is difficult because for a teambased online game this game still misses one of the most important features ever: Ingame voice com!!!!!!! and yet another !
I have seen some decent pug teamwork. But it had nothign to do with comunication. Mute teamwor is possible. But of course much harder

And btw: I currently pilot a triple SSRM2 Commando with ECM and BAP. Near invisble scout with uses as a light hunter

[Mordin Ashe]

Agreed, ECM can be countered with a bit of self-reliance. The thing is, I can't really TAG reliably with latency 150ms+ and unpredictable lag spikes of 500ms+. It can work sometimes, but not on fast targets and eventually it brings more frustration than success. In the current environment, there are ways of countering ECM mechs, but none reliable, which is the problem.

EDIT: Also, TAGing by myself has one major flaw - the enemy can pass the distance between us in seconds. Two volleys at max can be fired before I am tackled. That is more of a suicidal behavior than hurting the enemy.

Edited by Mordin Ashe, 12 December 2012 - 01:36 AM.

[Snib]

Theodor Kling, on 12 December 2012 - 01:25 AM, said:

Or from range Tag got much bigger range than ECM.

Sure, and it will be buffed. But it's not like good pilots did not know how to use cover before ECM was introduced, so I'll maintain my point, you'll only self-tag and LRM spam a bad pilot.

[Theodor Kling]

Snib, on 12 December 2012 - 01:37 AM, said:

Sure, and it will be buffed. But it's not like good pilots did not know how to use cover before ECM was introduced, so I'll maintain my point, you'll only self-tag and LRM spam a bad pilot.

Depends on the map and the mech though. Caustic got much less cover the nriver city. And an Atlas jsut can´t run to cover that fast . Of course he got other means to coutner LOS LRM fire

[I Just Ate Your Grapes Bro]

*gasp* you mean, you used VOICE coms and didn't have issues communicating?!?!?!?! Miraculous...



I do agree with everything else but really? The majority of people making these complaints (I'm not one of them, I LOVE ECM) are people that either can't or won't use voice coms. Honestly I feel like you should remove that part of the post because the rest is excellent info but is horribly overshadowed by this, obviously if you use voice you're going to be able to negate the effects ECM has on radar, but how does this translate into playing the game for the majority?

I don't have a mic but doesn't voice still require using a 3rd party program? While sure that isn't hard, it also isn't a solution by ANY means to a game to rely on a whole seperate program running just to get functionality, especially when dealing with pugs, if someone with a mic plugged in could at least communicate to their entire team, then this would be less of an issue, but I've NEVER once HEARD an order coming from a teammate via voice.

This isn't even touching the fact that the game is so unstable that I can't alt+tab for fear that it'll crash, and that even on powerhouse computers, there is stuttering and framerate drops that simply shouldn't exist, asking people to then run a third party program in the back just to have a chance at a higher success rate?

Sorry, don't mean to veer off-topic, there is definitely great info in this post and I wish more people would read and utilize it, I am SO sick of hearing how streak missiles should just act like SRMs when under ECM as if those people couldn't CHOOSE to mount a rack or 2 of SRMs FOR that scenario... bottom line is, if people would follow this more closely, even without voice coms their success rate would go up dramatically.


Also, just a quick typo here that threw me off, right before the numbered points in the middle

Quote

There is two things Tag can still do that we cannot stop.

Should read ECM? I haven't ever used tag so suppose I could be mistaken but this sure made me think I should lol.

Edited by Ehrithane, 12 December 2012 - 01:49 AM.

[Snib]

Theodor Kling, on 12 December 2012 - 01:39 AM, said:

Depends on the map and the mech though. Caustic got much less cover the nriver city. And an Atlas jsut can´t run to cover that fast . Of course he got other means to coutner LOS LRM fire

Sure, it's always give and take. The more ECM becomes common-place the more pilots will drop AMS, too, so if you get a good position for tagging you'll probably do more damage than before.

For a PUG best group with a fast ECM mech anyway and he'll have any self-taggers bubbled quickly.

[Theodor Kling]

Snib, on 12 December 2012 - 01:44 AM, said:

For a PUG best group with a fast ECM mech anyway and he'll have any self-taggers bubbled quickly.

I AM the fast ECM mech

Ehrithane, on 12 December 2012 - 01:44 AM, said:

*gasp* you mean, you used VOICE coms and didn't have issues communicating?!?!?!?! Miraculous...

[..]

I don't have a mic but doesn't voice still require using a 3rd party program? While sure that isn't hard, it also isn't a solution by ANY means to a game to rely on a whole seperate program running just to get functionality, especially when dealing with pugs, if someone with a mic plugged in could at least communicate to their entire team, then this would be less of an issue, but I've NEVER once HEARD an order coming from a teammate via voice.

This isn't even touching the fact that the game is so unstable that I can't alt+tab for fear that it'll crash, and that even on powerhouse computers, there is stuttering and framerate drops that simply shouldn't exist, asking people to then run a third party program in the back just to have a chance at a higher success rate?

Amen. I don´t have that many performance issues ( yeah I now: lucky). But having to use a 3rd party programm is a bad joke. And even more so when puging. Because the delay at game start is not enough to make a channel for it and get everyon inside even if everyone had TS runnign already.

[Adrienne Vorton]

funny thing is, i ALWAYS used my own eyes more than the radar actually... mostly because i can see mech movement from much further away than my sensors can... basically the only thing that changed for me is that the "beepbeep" from my sensors appears later now^^ and i need a tag to fire ssrm´s, which is not as much of a big deal as people seem to think...

i even ran a direct fire LRM setup long before ECM, paired with a TAG Laser...(or w/o Tag in my A1...2Lrm + 4 ssrm, which forced me to go around 400m to the target many times, so not much change there either)

back when you actually lost target because of a shutdown of them, i realized that LRM´s can be used really good in dumbfire mode, to get them guys to restart the engine^^ right, it´s much harder to guess the path of a moving target + travel time of the LRMs to chose an area to fire at, and hope the target runs into it, but i´ll try that soon (as soon as i collected enough Cbills again for a nice new Cat, or the stalker next week)


and don´t worry, my guess is, next week the STALKER will become "OP of the week", especially if PGI really raises the TAG Laser range..poor little ECM...

Edited by Adrienne Vorton, 12 December 2012 - 02:14 AM.

[Theodor Kling]

Adrienne Vorton, on 12 December 2012 - 02:01 AM, said:

funny thing is, i ALWAYS used my own eyes more than the radar actually... mostly because i can see mech movement from much further away than my sensors can... basically the only thing that changed for me is that the "beepbeep" from my sensors appears later now^^ and i need a tag to fire ssrm´s, which is not as much of a big deal as people seem to think...

With BAP ypur sensors reach about as far as the crappy view distance though
Anyway: I can already picture the whining when and if magnetic and seismic sensors hit . People will cry "cheater" all over the place when they get hit by LRMs without anyone being in LOS

[Adrienne Vorton]

Theodor Kling, on 12 December 2012 - 02:11 AM, said:

With BAP ypur sensors reach about as far as the crappy view distance though
Anyway: I can already picture the whining when and if magnetic and seismic sensors hit . People will cry "cheater" all over the place when they get hit by LRMs without anyone being in LOS

if those sensors (especially magnetics) don´t suffer from many possible interferences in several environments

Edited by Adrienne Vorton, 12 December 2012 - 02:20 AM.

[Theodor Kling]

Adrienne Vorton, on 12 December 2012 - 02:20 AM, said:

if those sensors (especially magnetics) don´t suffer from many possible interferences in several environments

They should River city and probably forzen city are no place for magnetics.. but seismic shouldnt realy be a problem outside water. Although i would like it to show only wight class of an otherwise unspotted mech, no more.