PANZERBUNNY, on 05 January 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:
I'm of the belief that ECM should just make the SPREAD of LRMS drastically larger. They are still fired like normal, but start to get wonky the closer they are flying near the center of the ECM bubble.
Keep in the radar jamming.
Increased LRM spread and SSRMS turn into normal SRMS, even though, yes I know in TT ECM doesn't effect Streak tech at all.
Couple the above with an activation switch and a slow, steady build up of heat from using ECM that will only go down when you shut it off.
Perhaps even the MORE friendly mechs being protected, the faster your ECM heat builds up as the system must compensate for putting out "stronger signals".
Done.
We have a decent item that won't be over saturated or abused and lights can get back to their role.
The targeting jamming is the outright worst aspect of the ECM, though - it doesn't follow TT rules remotely, and it allows a team to park a big pile of gauss boats and LRM boats on a ridge somewhere with relative immunity to counter-fire, unless the opposing team has remarkably better organization and focused fire.
Trying to make heat a balancing factor just encourages a team to bring more ECM 'mechs, for redundancy.
PGI needs to get back to TT double-blind rules and allow targeting of 'mechs with under ECM and info sharing, and basic missile locks. Delaying the time for target/missile lock somewhat would be fine, so would reducing detection range a bit (though not to such a drastic degree as -75%).
And if PGI isn't liking how much damage and accuracy they've given LRMs for indirect-fire, or the magic-center-torso-killing prowess of boated SSRMs, they should just tweak those systems directly instead of creating a "hard counter" as broken as ECM. Right now ECM is just making the worst cheese-builds stronger, so long as they have a D-DC or -3L buddy nearby.