With the prevalence of Active Scanners, and the plans to give them WP in the next update or two (a very GOOD thing, mind), we need an active counter to the active scanner. Foil Equipment with Equipment, I say!

A deploy-able like Nanohives or Uplinks, the ECM Scrambler will cause nearby friendlies to be much harder to scan down, but not impossible. There are certain Active Scanners that have very high scanning power, they could pierce through the interference. There could be a short range Scrambler that has immense power that only the best Active Scanner could pierce in Prototype tier as well, to encourage ranking up. Better range at higher metalevels, better scrambling ability etc.

What do you all think? We need something like this to help preserve the roles of Ambushing Heavies and other defenders, as well as giving another toy for Logi's to use to help the team.

I want an uplink jammer

the mods work good enough for me.

Seems very specific.
What about a general ECM thing which reduces equipment efficacy in its range?

Make it an active module that takes up an equipment slot, acts like scanner, recharges after a period yoy get different variations but yeah cool!!

Sounds plausible but I would recommend giving it a lifespan so that people won't be abusing them and next thing you know we end up with 20+ such jammers littering the outposts and then be able to hide whole armies and then we get more QQ like you see now.

I'm not too sure about making it mobile equipment like the Scanner or Repair Tool, as it might eclipse the passive Dampeners due to taking far less to run. Plus, if we make it mobile, entire groups would be able to remain both radar-invisible and highly mobile, in stark opposition to the Scout role of highly mobile loners. This would invalidate the Sneaky Scout playstyle, because why bring a Scout when it can be a Heavy and a Caldari logi?

Because you would have a timer, so you cant be invisible constantly
The radius on most would not fit a squad
And it helps specilise the EWAR role!!

The active scanner is indeed a must-have now, and after getting extremely annoyed at the "You have been scanned" every 2 seconds which you never know if the enemy you are around is in the squad who performed the scan, I decided to invest a little in dampeners.

2 enhanced dampeners on my calogi and I am now invisible to all but the one proto scanner that goes down to 15dB, all the rest, including the ever popular 25 second scanner, cannot detect me. And I LOVE seeing the "Scan attempt prevented" (or whatever it says, I can't remember ATM).

An anti-scan hive would be interesting, but I think it might undermine the sacrifice of using dampeners and the advantage of using an active-scanner. Cause at least in ambush, the blob of players generally are all in one spot. it's pretty much blob vs blob for entire rounds. So an anti-scanner hive would be way too useful in that regard.

Moved to Feedback/Requests

this would be cool for snipers, if there was a bubble to provide invisibility from scanners.
+1

+1 for good idea, and I run scanners all the time.

I don't like the idea of having a single piece of equipment that can passively make another class of equipment useless within a certain radius. Do we have droppables that can make nanite injectors or repair tools not work? Why should a scanner be rendered useless or debilitated in scanning the majority of the enemy team just because one person on the other side skilled into a single piece of equipment?

This also applies to ECM interference with DUs and nanohives: the only thing that should remove them from play is physical destruction. Equipment that nullifies them passively only by being dropped is too OP. Think of it this way - if you see a tank on the field, you counter it with AV, forges, swarms, other tanks, whatever. You need to actively try to get rid of it to prevent it from aiding the enemy, just like you need to actively destroy nanohives/uplinks. There is no option to emit an EMP that disables said tank from operating.

To gain the ability to evade scanning, you need to skill into a module and sacrifice slots to fit them. It would be OP to lend this ability to everyone, at no cost to them.

The closest thing that might mimic this is triage nanohives, as they take the place of armor repair modules, but even those are very limited - they only heal a given amount of HP per cycle and eventually pop, they are contained within a specific, small radius, and emit a large, visible signature both on the minimap and in the game environment. If these scramblers had similar attributes, they'd most likely be useless.

So no, scrambler devices are not necessary. If you want to evade scans, skill into profile dampeners or use scout suits.

To gain the ability to evade scanning, you need to skill into a module and sacrifice slots to fit them. It would be OP to lend this ability to everyone, at no cost to them.

1) If your scrambler is deployable, then it's automatically not an "active" piece of equipment. A nanohive or drop uplinks are not "active" pieces of equipment just because they take up a slot; in my definition, a piece of equipment is "active" when it must be equipped in order to be used - repair tools, nanite injectors, active scanners.

2) Active scanners and your proposed scramblers are not equitable. Scanning intel only aids you and your squad, has a limited range, is directional, and must constantly be refreshed. Further, because the scanner is active, it means that in order to use it you must switch to it and hence don't have your gun out. Your scrambler seems to be a deployable piece of equipment that affects everyone in its radius, not only your squadmates. If your scrambler had to be equipped like the scanner, was directional or very limited in radius, and only worked for a short period, say 10-30 seconds before it needed to be refreshed, then you might have an argument and it might not be OP. It seems to me that this isn't what you're going for.

From my interpretation of your proposal, you could simply put multiple scramblers on rooftops or hard to get areas and hide your entire team from scanning detection so long as they stayed within the scrambler's overlapping range. Hence its OP.

Not all suits need to be invisible from scans. If we're talking proto scanners, heavy suits can't dodge them no matter how many dampeners they stack. But last time I checked, heavy suits don't register on scanners with a minimap signature more pronounced than any other suit, so if you see a scanned target around the corner it could very well be a fatty with dampened friends to ambush you.

In the end, it all comes down to what you think is worthwhile to sacrifice on your suit in order to gain an ability. I know how powerful scanners are so I invested in profile dampeners despite having to give up armor plates or shield regulators to use them.

Think of it another way. As I said, triage nanohives can more or less replace your armor repairers, right? Imagine then if the triage hive had a 50-100m radius, didn't need LOS to heal you, and would constantly heal you without popping until it was destroyed. Sounds OP, doesn't it? It's pretty much what you're asking your scrambler to do.

I also don't agree with your notion that equipment must battle equipment. We don't have devices that nullify nanite injectors or repair tools, or drop uplinks and nanohives. If we did, people would just skill into that stuff and equipment use would drop, or one side wouldn't have it and would hence be destroyed, etc. It really just leads to stale gameplay.

Hmm, seems like my interpretation of how this would work differs from yours. So please explain the best way to design this device and we will go from there.

Info like duration, radius (magnitude and whether spherical like nanohives or linear like scanners), how the dampening works (i.e. deducting a specific dB number or percentage from the scan profiles of anyone in its radius) etc. Does it work on equipment? Or only infantry? What about vehicles? If they overlap is the effect increased by that much? Will the device itself show up on scans?

The reason I like the scanner and dampeners as they are now is because everyone uses scanners nowadays, and therefore dampening can lend a huge tactical advantage seeing as so many rely on scanning results to be accurate. But you are forced to sacrifice modules on their suit to use dampeners, as it should be.

There is one technical aspect I would like to point out. I don't think heavies could be dampened at all using your system. The reason is this - to evade the advanced A-45 Quantum Scanner, you need to have a scan profile of under 36dB. Heavies start at 65dB. You seem to want the scramblers to be able to hide them without any additional dampening from their end, so that means either a magnitude reduction of 29dB or a percentage reduction of 45%. This means that any medium frame also benefiting from such a scrambler would be able to evade all proto scanners except the Duvolle Focused (15dB), which is an advantage that you don't seem to agree with.

Again, you're essentially replacing low slots with an area of effect deployable, so the comparison to triage nanohives is justifiable.

So the only way to counter a proto jammer is to equip the Duvolle Focused Scanner - a piece of equipment with the third highest PG requirement of anything in the game, and limited usefulness as a scanner itself?

Are we really better served by equipment that makes radar useless? This should be the question you ask yourself. You are designing the next flavor of the month, and if implemented everyone will start using these. Do we get better, more exciting games if we know where most people are (give or take 1-2 people who can defeat scans), or if we don't know where anyone is (give or take 1-2 people who are idiots out in the open)?

We have a direct counter to the active scanner. They are called profile dampeners. I use them, as do others - not only scouts. Maybe you should try using them yourself. If you are a heavy, sorry, you DON'T GET TO EVADE SCANS. Heavies are not supposed to be "ambush" fighters who rely on stealth - else they wouldn't have such a high scanning profile in the first place.

Anyway, not gonna waste any more time making arguments over why your hypothetical piece of equipment is a bad idea. Clearly you're not going to be convinced this is OP unless it is implemented and abused. And I said, if CCP decides to add something like this, I will be the first to abuse the hell out of it.

Until then enjoy getting scanned, or skill into dampeners.

We have a direct counter to the active scanner. They are called profile dampeners. I use them, as do others - not only scouts. Maybe you should try using them yourself. If you are a heavy, sorry, you DON'T GET TO EVADE SCANS. Heavies are not supposed to be "ambush" fighters who rely on stealth - else they wouldn't have such a high scanning profile in the first place.

Anyway, not gonna waste any more time making arguments over why your hypothetical piece of equipment is a bad idea. Clearly you're not going to be convinced this is OP unless it is implemented and abused. And I said, if CCP decides to add something like this, I will be the first to abuse the hell out of it.

Until then enjoy getting scanned, or skill into dampeners.

The passive modules are fine as-is, but any class besides Scout can't really afford to waste low slots on Profile Dampeners. Also, they have such larger profiles that it is that much easier to scan them. Adding an equipment item that can defend an area from scan attempts will prevent these defenders from being completely outclassed via placement, as well as prevent abuse due to the stationary nature of deploy-able equipment.

Scouts can't afford spend that many low slots either. Which is why I really like your idea - there doesn't need to be a more powerful scanner to counter it. It already exists.

Edit: Hadn't read the whole thread yet - on the face of it - a proto jammer should at least need the Med frames inside to have dampening 5 to evade 28db scans.

Anyone else want?

Your Ideas Are Crappy Give This A Rest
TL;DR - read the first word of every paragraph.

I am giving you a +1. Not because I support your logic, but because that was the most clever way of bashing someone AND getting you point across that I have ever seen.

Made my day.

Still want

Surprised more people aren't supporting this idea, given the prevalence of active scanners.

Still want

Do it

Still very much needed

Anyone else want?

I think especially for scouts something that would be useful would be a piece of equipment that would simulate random people on the radar. Or basically create radar ghosts.

Ace Combat 5 had an enemy that did this. It was awesome.