F lan Ker, on 11 December 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:
How the ECM for example blocks the TAG laser from reflecting at a Mech's surface, thus providing needed feedback to get a target lock, is mildly put strange and not even logical. To do so the ECM would need to shut off TAG completely but this is not the case I believe, just does not provide lock for others within 180m. Increasing it's range is an improvement I guess. But to render laser useless or reduce it's efficiency would require smoke, low reflecting surfaces etc. and none of those are in MWO.
To be fair, the TAG could be only detecting its' own laser at a unique frequency, otherwise laser dazzlers would be 100% standard equipment to permaspoof all laser-guided equipment (tag, artemis [which in my defense canonically requires no indirect fire and also firer's line of sight for the laser lockon], streaks...)
So, there IS that, and if the TAG used the existing intermech communications to transmit its' findings to a firer, it'd be suitably blocked by the current style of ECM effects.
They could house-rule it to be different though. I'd be fine with that. They've house ruled the snot out of everything already
Someone asked me how much heat a large laser generated last night. I'm so steeped in MWO-tech (which is no longer BattleTech, it's something different) that I said seven.
Needless to say, I was wrong.
*EDIT*
Lightfoot, on 11 December 2012 - 08:38 AM, said:
Really doesn't matter. ECM in MWO has nothing to do with Battletech's ECM.
I find that strange since they bend over backwards to make LRMs and other weapons conform to TT and in the case of LRMs they can't without making them either over-powering or worthless. In a MechWarrior interactive game players should want to take some LRMs and some lasers on their 'mech. In MWO they want squads of 'mechs with only LRMs or no LRMs at all, depending on the patch.
Nnnnooooo... LRMS do not go 33.3 hexes... they go 21. And TAG-capable missiles use special warheads which wouldn't exist yet. Same for NARC. They're both as expensive as the (currently correctly represented [YES IN COST TOO]) Artemis warheads. Also, my lasers do all their damage to one place, ammo explodes if I so much as fart on it after a structure-critical, and PPCs are a useful, even terrifying weapon.
Dying at that last one. Hitscan-effect our PPCs, PGI...please. Just do it. Make them a superlaser. They already straight up lose next to LargeLasers. Just try it. Even put their heat back
where it belongs and try it.
Also SRMs aren't the most terrifying things on 2- or 4-legs inside a hundred meters (unless we're using the advanced scatter range rules in which case we're using a clusterhell of other rules only some of which I see represented), they only do 2 damage, LRMs do 1 damage (and they're ok there), and I can potentially headnuke someone with a single Gauss rifle... (3% of the time. 3! That's an ok number.)
Heat sinks don't increase the maximum heat you can accomodate, BAP is an enormous paperweight unless you're sniffing ambushes/shutdown mechs (which is unfortunately so useless in this game due to the microscopic maps), and a single ECM doesn't make or break a game for all the light mechs involved (shaking my fist at you, Streaks-as-only-counter-to-lagshield-coupled-with-poor-framerate).
Machineguns actually HAVE a damage number, Flamers are more painful to the firing mech than the victim (but are surprisingly terrifying to encounter), Small Pulse Laser have a point at all, and jumping does more than make you a ***** target at long range.
...they have modified the game beyond being Battletech. It contributes to the series, and puts a very pretty (if equally or moreso buggy) face on an old franchise which needed it, but it's about 60% Battletech and 40% PGI"balance"tech at this point.
Edited by Kobura, 11 December 2012 - 08:57 AM.
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