There are plenty of options we just have to make sure we don't make them too easily accessible, less we marganalise scouts again.
Personally I am in favour of STATIC grenades. Which creates an area of 'chaff' tiny relective particles of metal that scrambler electronic sensor equipment. Cloaked units inside the 'chaff' will be easier to spot as they will NOT cloak to the chaff around them.

You will see the silhouette of the unit effectively cut out off the chaff.

Fact: Cloaks make dampening too powerful in the EWAR equation.
Fact: Dampening SHOULD be capable of exceeding scanning to be effective.

BOTH of these things are facts. BOTH are true and correct.

Solution: Reduce profile dampening effect of cloak from 25% to 10 or 15%

There SHOULD be a valid EWAR benefit to cloak use, but it's currently too large a benefit.

I think you could get away with getting rid of the dampening bonus from cloaks. Or you could fix cloaks where you cannot fire until fully uncloaked (either a delay or instant), that way you appear on the radar a split second before you fire. I always expected it to work more like the latter.

But there will always be a disparity between precision mods and dampening mods because scanning wins in a tie. With profile and precision rounding to the nearest whole number the disparity has to be significant or precision enhancers would always trump dampeners.

Come play with me - I promise you'll see my passive scans (confirmed repeatedly by lots of people)

* Shared passive scanner vision for squads disabled (results of active scanners are still shared with squads)

What effect would STATIC grenades have on units without cloak?

...remove the profile dampening effect of activated cloaks. As I explain more here, granting a bonus to profile dampening not only unnecessarily conflates two stealth tactics (visual + radar), it doesn't make sense that an activated, running piece of electronic equipment (ie, the cloak) decreases noise or EM radiation. The additional bonus to profile makes even less sense when considering scout suits also received more slots, enabling them to more easily fit an extra profile dampener.

There is a valid ewar benefit to cloaks. Yep, that is what you look like when cloaked, and that is incredibly powerful.

IF you look here you will find the patchnotes from uprising 1.4, in it you will find this statement


No, you do not share passive scans

I run 2 pro precision and 1 pro dampner. I like to RE people so I want to see them coming. Can't say anything has snuck up on me. I'm on my phone so reading the chart is like reading through a straw. So, you're saying the 2nd precision in pointless? Or both? How is precision for a cal scout when they are also cloaked? Isnt scanning related to dampening?

I just started messing with scouts so I just threw on what fit my adv suit. Oh, and I have Lvl 5 damp and precision (kind of obvious since Im running complex mods).

I run 2 pro precision and 1 pro dampner. I like to RE people so I want to see them coming. Can't say anything has snuck up on me. I'm on my phone so reading the chart is like reading through a straw. So, you're saying the 2nd precision in pointless? Or both? How is precision for a cal scout when they are also cloaked? Isnt scanning related to dampening?

I just started messing with scouts so I just threw on what fit my adv suit. Oh, and I have Lvl 5 damp and precision (kind of obvious since Im running complex mods).

This is a ridiculous statement made by some people. Let me show you why:

Once I realized that the range enhancers only added 1m then the math was obvious. Don't waste any SP on them.

With a Drop Suit Upgrade SP reset I wouldn't spend the SP on damage mods past ADV as PRO requires two skill levels and is worthless with the Nerf Hammer being applied. Which is why CCP/Shanghai doesn't want to ever allow SP refunds. They would rather Nerf you out of a benefit after the fact by removing the reason you spent the SP in the first place.

Just fit precision mods...

Magnus you almost touched on a missing point here. I agree with you on the cloak with the dampener being a problem, but remember it is an active module, that had its active counter nerfed hard prior to its release. The active scanner should be a hard counter to the cloak, but the whole thing was implemented wrong in my opinion. The active scanner is all but useless in the hands of anything other than a gal Logi, and with it's duration and cooldown times, even in the hands of a gal Logi make it laughable.

The unit should work the same way as the cloak to be an effective counter, similar to the vehicle scanner in that it is scanning as long as it is out in a radius, but with no duration when out of range and only scanning while it's out. As soon as the wielder switches weapons, equipment, grenade, it shuts down. If the wielder is killed, scans are gone. It should have the same activation and cool down mechanic as the cloak, and skills, precision mods should improve its effectiveness. This way you have a piece of equipment that is usable by everyone, but only people with dedicated skills and modules can use it effectively.

It should be expensive to fit to discourage over use, maybe even give a fitting bonus to all the logistic class similar to scouts cloak fitting bonus.

This opinion is coming from someone who has Gal Logi lvl 5 and used scanners this build extensively, Gal Scout lvl 5 and used cloak damp quite a bit, and Cal Scout lvl 4 running with 2 complex precision amps. All my ewar skills are level 5. From my play, Cal's passive are OP to everyone but dedicated dampened and a Gal scouts, and Gal Scout is just straight up OP. Gal Logi is not worth the price you pay to be an effective scout counter with current scan mechanics.

Magnus you almost touched on a missing point here.

The balance of dampening vs. precision - AND the value of scanners - needs tweaking. Maybe it would be a better idea to make scanners provide a fixed-range and fixed-arc scanning effect, but the precision is a bonus onto your suit's passive scan precision instead of a fixed value? Or maybe Scanners should be made more viable in some other way - NERF their base precision, but allow precision mods to apply to them, so an Active Scanner and mods will be an effective counter to a cloaked Scout if they don't dampen themselves as well?

I agree with you on the cloak with the dampener being a problem, but remember it is an active module, that had its active counter nerfed hard prior to its release. The active scanner should be a hard counter to the cloak, but the whole thing was implemented wrong in my opinion. The active scanner is all but useless in the hands of anything other than a gal Logi, and with it's duration and cooldown times, even in the hands of a gal Logi make it laughable.

And this, while including just enough truth to sound logical, is laughable in its stupidity. A fully deceked out stealth build SHOULD be capable of hiding from EVERYTHING - EVEN a fully decked out scanning build. But it's ONLY a fully decked out stealth build that should do this. Active Scanners - or good passive scanning - shouldn't be a HARD counter to ALL cloakers, but should be a RELIABLE counter against MOST cloakers.

^

It's make no sense to say that the best scanner should ultimately beat out the best stealther - because, and I know this has been said in various contexts now, but seriously - the guy with a scanner still has eyes in their favour, in fact everybody has the innate potential to see even a cloaked scout.

I don't think, in the context of improved scanning especially, we should be QQing all the way to saying that not even the stealth specialising scout can evade all scans if they sacrifice low slots to do it...

The truth is, the overall mechanics of Ewar in DUST is just so badly implemented - Ewar based around a more analogue system of detection would make things a bit fairer and easier to balance IMO.

I am not saying that. I have been saying repeatedly that WITHOUT the free non-stacking-penalized complex dampening module on the cloak, it is completely possible to become completely invisible, the difference being that without the attribute on a cloak, it isn't ridiculously easy.

You 2 (not Magnus) missed my point also. I'm not saying That the cloak should be beatable if fully dampened, right now it's too easily defeated. The best possible dampened and cloaked scout while cloaked should be able to beat the best possible precision enhanced scanner. This is the case now, but the only scanner that can beat most skilled partially dampened cloaked scouts now is an overly expensive, narrow beamed, short duration LONG cool down scanner, and it has to be used by a single suit class at lvl 5. You have to be lucky to hit a scout with that thing. To keep with the prior spirit of dampeners beat enhancers, 2 enhancers beat 1 dampener, 2 enhancers plus scanner beat 1 dampener plus cloak.

I also think this is a pipe dream, so I agree that the simplest solution would be to remove the dampening bonus, I'm just worried that this leave the Cal Scout as king of sight hands down. In my experience, that vision is shared and is worse than an active scanner because it's always on and gives no warning to the scanned.

This is a ridiculous statement made by some people. Let me show you why:

Hover zoom or clicky

The above bar graph shows how precision enhancers are mostly underpowered because of the added dampening of the cloak.

Oh and for all of you guys saying fit precision enhancers on medium/heavy suits(logi for the graph):

Hover zoom or clicky

Stop saying that, it is not a good idea.

TLDR:
First link shows how scouts precision lines up with dampening. Cloaks make dampening too strong
Second link shows why precision enhancers on mediums or above is stupid.

EDIT: Here is the point of it all. If you look at that graph, there is no bonus to cloaks. All of the sudden, Ewar is balanced once again between the scouts (although balance between scouts and other suits in the ewar department is still wonky)

I wasn't able to get that scanning sharing to show-up in-game, but I suggest everyone who does to submit a bug report/ticket in order to get that fixed. I mean it is plain as day CCP didn't intend to share that, and there is no way in hell it should be shared.

Shared Squad Sight encourages Squad Diversity. It addresses the concerns you've laid out about profile and precision. Why shouldn't it exist?

1) CCP specifically took it out of the game when they fixed active scanners

2) They have said nothing about re-instating it

3) It is too powerful, it is like the active scanners of pre-1.8 except always on and with no warning, no cooldown, no activation, no scaning arc, no weapon-switching.

Honestly if you can't see that this is game-breaking... well I .... I have no clue what to say...

Oh and this is a PRETTY MAJOR change that goes directly against what CCP themselves have ACTIVELY done.