29 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Personally, I would have gone even further. I really like the ability of indirect fire and all that. But by giving us the ability to relay targeting information "for free", they invalidate some later equipment, and I think they make role warfare a lot more boring.
I would have expected that being able to relay targeting information would either require special gear, or a module.

But I guess it's too late for that.

[StalaggtIKE]

MustrumRidcully, on 14 January 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

Personally, I would have gone even further. I really like the ability of indirect fire and all that. But by giving us the ability to relay targeting information "for free", they invalidate some later equipment, and I think they make role warfare a lot more boring.
I would have expected that being able to relay targeting information would either require special gear, or a module.

But I guess it's too late for that.

There is still time. I hope they revert to making information warfare a focused project. Currently IW is failing miserably with nothing but ECM vs ECM.

[Firesteel]

Wonderful, well thought out post. I can safely say that this would fix most of my gripes with the current implementation of everything electronic warfare related.

[Aaron45]

bump

[ClaymoreReIIik]

The OP is wonderfully thought out, but in order to adapt differently to a shooter game:

I would balance the electronic warfare equipment in the following manner:

Mechs should have electronic warfare (short: ewar) slots. Every mech should have at least 1 ewar slot. Lights could per definition have 2 ewar slots with all other mechs having 1. Special variants (Com 2D, Raven 3L, Cic 3M, D-DC and the current ECM-Spider) should have 1 more ewar slot then the other variants of the chassis.

ECM:
ECM takes up 1 ewar slot.
ECM should have 2 modes of operation.
1 would be cloak. Cloak creates a 180 meter bubble around the ECM mech where people can target you and relay your position, but they will not gather any target information at all. No percentage, no distance, no location on minimap. Just a red dot with a direction for all the team to see. Missile lock on times on cloaked targets are at 300% (meaning REALLY slow but possible locks). Tag from outside the bubble will give back distance to target and Damage indicators. BAP from outside the bubble will reduce the lock-on-timer penalty to 200%. NARC beacons inside an ECM-cloak-bubble should keep the target distance and information visible for the duration and drop the lock-on penalty to 200%.
2 will be disrupt. Disrupt has only one effect. If the hardlocked target is under 500 meter away from you and your ECM is on disrupt, (ONLY!!!!) your hard-locked target can not get any missile locks. (No LRM, No Streaks.)

BAP:
BAP takes up 1 ewar slot.
BAP should have 2 modes of operation:
Mode 1 will be "Improve" that has the same effects as BAP has now.
Mode 2 will be "counter" that will counter the effects of the ECM of (ONLY) your hard-locked target if the hard-locked target is under 500m distance from you.

TAG:
TAG should stay as it is right now, with the exception that it takes up an EWar-Slot instead of an energy slot. (Laser that grants lock-on boni to Missiles instead of doing damage.) Lock-on time duration should be shortened to 50%

NARC:
NARC should take up 1 ewar slot.
NARC should give a 35 second beacon signal. If the "victim" is not under ECM cloak missiles should lock onto it without having the reticle over the target and lock-on-duration should be shortened to 30%. (Hard lock would be enough to get missile lock.) NARC within an ECM bubble should behave as described under ECM.


That way you would get some "rock,paper,scissors" interaction between the electronic warfare equipments that can be pimped/decreased by the uber expensive modules.

None of the pieces would be unstoppable in its own right and if a Light would want to do all the things it would have to sacrifice 7 tons and 5 crit slots to bring ECM, BAP, TAG (even more if he wants NARC as well).

Each item would have its own distinct advantage it brings to the table and I think that setup would further the diversity of EW-equipments used.

Additionally I think in this setup all mechs could have the ability to field all ewar modules, as long as they have the slots for it. Using more then 1 ECM to have one operating in each mode would be a possible option too.

[DocBach]

It'd be wonderful if I just saw one RVN-3L Raven, which comes stock with almost every piece of electronic warfare kit in the game, keep more than just its ECM and more recently TAG.

From Garth:

"I sent a 5 page 'suggestions from the forums' email to design a couple days ago, with multiple links to ECM ideas."

Fingers crossed this was one of them.

[Pachar]

I'd like to say that I like the idea of the BAP countering ECM in some way.
The first post here was pretty awesome and it brings up a point IMO. The IP that MWO is based off of has previous incarnations that balanced out ECM, so stop reinventing the wheel and start with what works before tweeking it to fit this incarnation of mechwarrior.
The post that mention Ewar slots was also an idea that I could get behind if the Devs decide to try it.

[Vincent Quatermain]

BAP should have the disrupt feature instead of ECM.
NARC should be more powerful.
ECM counter mode should not obscure your view of friendly units.
http://mwomercs.com/...mple-ecm-fixes/

[DocBach]

Now that the net code is fixed, the ECM lights drop pretty easy. It's definitely separated the boys from the men when it comes to good light pilots. However, ECM is still the only name in the game when it comes to electronic warfare, and weapons like LRM's are still mostly absent from eight man drops because ECM still acts as a more effective anti-missile system than AMS.

[DocBach]

If modules are the way that PGI wants to make things more viable in information warfare, perhaps the long range radar jamming and the such should be included as a module, rather than a base function of the Guardian ECM.