THE ECM

[Evil donut]

So i have got my fingers on one of this super expensive ECMs. It takes tons of space and tonage on the mech. It does what it should. It cloaks my mechs in the area of the ECM mech and no LRM can penetrate my holy sphere of protection. But it does another thing. Every enemy mech on the map basically becomes a Zergling who swarms your small lance of four mechs. Holy hell even the super great heavy long range mechs are coming to rush you in close combat. And i MEAN it! The mechs basically want to punch your ECM carrier in the face. Well long story short i got absolutly swarmed by tons of enemy mechs which basically became mindless Zerg drones.

Next time i will take 4 close combat mechs with me when i equip this EXPENSIVE device of mind trickery.

[Hyndis]

I put an ECM on an Annihilator equipped with UAC5 x4 and buckets of ammo.

This was a mistake. I broke the game. ECM's are just too powerful on anything other than a light mech such as the Raven. My Annihilator was a 100 ton tower of autocannon death that was somehow invisible thanks to ECM magic.

I'm not sure if ECM's can stack, but I didn't care to find out.

One of my personal rules is now to never use ECM because its far too easy to exploit.

[BrowneHawk]

The enemy can still sensor lock your ecm unit. Not sure what type of missions you guys take, but mess up where you put the unit, it gets sensor locked, then piled on.

[Lack of Stuff]

The AI will do that if they can't sensor lock. They are trying to negate a stealth charge by getting inside the bubble.

[Evil donut]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

The AI will do that if they can't sensor lock. They are trying to negate a stealth charge by getting inside the bubble.

Well yes, this is exactly what the AI is doing.

[Kel'Ithra]

I saw it for the first time in store a few days ago since Urban Warfare, and I automatically said "NOPE" was almost 3 million c-bills... rather just dust off the raven instead.

[Hyndis]

The ECM you find in stores can be installed on any mech. An Atlas II with an ECM installed is horrifying.

[Evil donut]

Originally posted by Hyndis:

The ECM you find in stores can be installed on any mech. An Atlas II with an ECM installed is horrifying.

I have put it on my Dragon now and fitted the dragon out with +++ close combat modules. It anhilates everything.

[Lord Baler]

I've collected the 2 In Game Mechs that have been built by House Liao.
The Ravem 1X and Cataphtact 0X. I didn't keep the Raven 1X from the missions;
Devoted time to bag the salavage from the mechs to get them.

I also setup an Annihilator-1A like Hyndis. ECM Suite. Cockpit Module +3, UAC/10 x 2,
Medium Laser 3+ x 4, and a Gauss Cannon +.

It is imbalancing the game if you just go for a straight up 4 vs 4 fight even with
Equal Tonnage.

I've tried the Stacking approach and did a mission with the Raven, Cataphract and Annihilator.
They do stack for cloacking and ECM from but not cumulative on the bonus; Just effect;
Such as when 1 looses the effect another one can approach and it will cover the Revealed
Mech.

They have revised the AI so somehow it can still see your mech even without a sensor lock.
I ran a single mech mission a Raven 1X it never got into the sensor range of opfor but they seemed to know my mech was in a particular direction. I just effectively used terrain to get around them. Using valleys and impassable terrain to build a buffer. I put jump jets on my Raven similar to the Mech Commander Variant.

I also did an Full Lance of Cataphracts 0X versus a Full Lance of Heavies on a 4 vs 8 and
completed the mission but lost 2 Mechs that were no longer cost efficient to repair as i lost the
ECM Suite.

When I found the ECM Suite on Lyreton, I also purchased the Beagle Active Probe.
The BAP is next to useless except in Urban and Night Missions to improve visibility.
The Heat Generated also doesn't make it worthwhile.

I tried also the mount the ECM onto a Cyclops 10-HQ which effective left the mech a
tru CNC Mech. Didn't have any proper weapons except for Point Defense Small Laser and MG.
Compensated with Arm MODS to make it a brawler and Armor for extending life.
In this configuration, unless you're doing an Escort or some light weight mission it's fine but
in an Attack, Battle, Attack and Defend and Target Acquisition Mission it will test your patience
as you end up handicapped by 1 Mech unable to get into the fight. And if you do decide
to get in the CQB renders the Cloak useless.

My 2-cents for ECM.

Unfortunately, Paradox isn't releasing any new DLCS or expansions for BattleTech; It would have been great if they would release a mod that will allow for Multiplayer where players can
field their mods versus other players instead of just the AI. Or alternatively.

Allow for a Player 8 v 12/16 instead of the 8 vs 12/16 or 12 vs 12 where only 4 mechs are controlled by the player. Expanding the controllable mechs will give the game more durability
and expand the imagination of Mech Techs and Armorers to experiment with variants that will allow for Fire Lance, Command Lance and Scout Lance Company Level combat.

[JC]

It's kinda funny when people say the enemy Zerg'd ya. If you can't target them you would rush too.. If your gonna use ECM, you gotta be at long range. but that will only work for a couple turns.

[Azure]

I'd just like to use a Raven without having 7.5 tons of minimally useful weight in one torso. Its one of my Fav Mech's and thus far its proven to have the effect of everything goes for it even if its sitting back and not doing much (ECM induced stupidity i guess)

[Yian Yan]

I dunno about how impossibly OP the ECM is: it elicits some responses from the AI I never see otherwise. The first time I took the ECM into the field was the first time I ever saw the enemy AI actually use Reserve. While you do have the benefit of invisibility in large part the enemy will start reserving it's actions until it has sensor lock in play or it HAS to move (or if it has static AI like convoys/story mission enemies).

The AI has a bigger hurdle to overcome but it begins to make initiative abuse harder by using reserve instead of just moving when it's turn comes up in initiative.