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Ok, I know that the recon and scanner skills both affect the chances to acquire and maintain links, but which skill(s) are more important for which jocks (linker and linkee)?

Does a linkee with a high scanner skill allow the linker to establish a link more easily, or is the scanner skill only important for the linker when checking for a succesful link? (say that ten times fast )

Also, does the recon skill only help maintain links for the linked jock, or is it also important for the linker to have? Basically, which jock is responsible for maintaining links?

Finally, does the quality of the scanner hardware have any effect on ease of maintaining scanner links, or is it purely a skill thing?

Thanks!

Hmm. I never thought about this... *shrugs* I don't know. I'd like to though.

In v1.4, the recon skill modifies the linker's chance to keep his scanner link stable. The scanner skill modifies the maximum number of link partners a jock can handle. A link is always successful, it just can not last too long. That's link stability, there's a check every so often. And then there's active scanning through a scanner link, that is, scanning an enemy that you can only see through a scanner link to one of your allies
So I guess part of the answer to your question is, the linker needs a high recon skill and the linkee a high scanner skill if he intends on having multiple titans linked to its scanner. It's probably more complex than this though.
In WS things have changed a little.

Thanks Iceman, that clears it up a bit.

I've been trying to put together a team with a few LRM/indirect fire titans but my rookie jocks are having a tough time keeping their links stable.

I'm assuming LoS doesn't have any effect on scanner links, is this correct? Probably just my imagination, but it seems like I lose links quicker when my recon titans move out of the linked titans' LoS.

Hmm. If I'm reading what your saying right...

Yes it does matter. you can't maintain a link with a titan you can't see.

then again i could just be reading what you said wrong....

You read me right, firestorm.

Doh! Well I guess that explains 99% of my failed link stability checks then. Does anyone use indirect fire with LRM's at all or is it generally considered a weak tactic?

I like the idea of having a couple of lightly armored titans parked behind a mountain that specialize in artillery-type strikes, but the LoS thing seems to be a pretty nasty handicap. Is pouring valuable experience points into the indirect fire skill worth it?

Any further thoughts/tips would be appreciated!

Indirect fire is for veterans with a good main weapon missile skill. Guided missiles have a smaller penalty on hitting the target than unguided missiles.

But if you can get a jock with a good indirect fire skill, it can be seriously effective against enemies with no missile weapons. There are plenty of opportunities for indirect fire, when you can see your enemy, but he isn't actually in your LOS. At that point, if you're good at indirect fire, he's all yours, you can rain missiles on him with complete impunity. Quite often, my missile titans run into a situation where they have LOS with an enemy until he falls over, then suddenly he's got a little X next to his titan. Well, if you've got no indirect, you'll just have to wait until he stands up. If, on the other hand, you have the skill, you can keep blasting him while he struggles to get to his feet.

So, in the beginning, it's probably not the best idea to waste points on indirect fire, unless your jock is going to be a purely missile user, but as they get better, it's a useful skill to have around.

Heh... I like missle titans, cuz they can fire like that. And I have noticed GM. racks being alot more effective in indirect fire.

Usually I keep two missle jocks on my team, one guided one unguided, but my leader recently OD'd on Neutron Blasters, and melted... Then my missle jocks died, so I'm workin on getting a new leader for more jocks.

GMs are far superioud to NGMs. Unless you LIKE pricking your enemy in 5 different places... I prefer a sledgehammer to 2-3 places, like GMs

Except when one of those places in the HEAD!
BTW, there are no "counters" to NGMs, which is not the case with GMs (flares and ECM). All in all, none is better than the other.