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Proposed idea for change to ECM
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Trolly McForumalt
Doomheim
#1 - 2013-05-01 22:03:13 UTC
As we all know, ECM currently operates by denying target lock capabilities to the affected ship. Either ECM works and feels overpowered (to the victim) or it doesn't and feels useless (to the user).

I propose that instead of preventing a ship from locking a target, ECM instead adds a predefined 'chance to miss' modifier to an attacking vessel (using either turrets or missiles) or drone. I don't have specific suggestions as to what percent that should be as that should be determined by testing. A stacking penalty would have to apply. The module should work across all races and move away from the current model of modules having racial strengths.

What do people think? Good/bad idea? Already been proposed (I didn't see anything similar after a short search)?
sabre906
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2013-05-01 22:06:51 UTC
Trolly McForumalt wrote:
As we all know, ECM currently operates by denying target lock capabilities to the affected ship. Either ECM works and feels overpowered (to the victim) or it doesn't and feels useless (to the user).

I propose that instead of preventing a ship from locking a target, ECM instead adds a predefined 'chance to miss' modifier to an attacking vessel (using either turrets or missiles) or drone. I don't have specific suggestions as to what percent that should be as that should be determined by testing. A stacking penalty would have to apply. The module should work across all races and move away from the current model of modules having racial strengths.

What do people think? Good/bad idea? Already been proposed (I didn't see anything similar after a short search)?


What is your change to miss on that point, higher or lower than currently?P
Trolly McForumalt
Doomheim
#3 - 2013-05-01 22:20:49 UTC
sabre906 wrote:
Trolly McForumalt wrote:
As we all know, ECM currently operates by denying target lock capabilities to the affected ship. Either ECM works and feels overpowered (to the victim) or it doesn't and feels useless (to the user).

I propose that instead of preventing a ship from locking a target, ECM instead adds a predefined 'chance to miss' modifier to an attacking vessel (using either turrets or missiles) or drone. I don't have specific suggestions as to what percent that should be as that should be determined by testing. A stacking penalty would have to apply. The module should work across all races and move away from the current model of modules having racial strengths.

What do people think? Good/bad idea? Already been proposed (I didn't see anything similar after a short search)?


What is your change to miss on that point, higher or lower than currently?P


???

Not sure what you are asking (or if you are serious) but...

The module would simply add a modifier to the affected ship that would make it miss it's intended target.

At first I envisioned it as only aiding the ship that equipped it, but I saw that as making ECM less effective in gangs or fleets. I do not know how this would (or could) work in relation to other types of negative effects such as neuts, webs, etc. Also have them receive a chance to fail? I don't know how hard this would be to code.
Hakan MacTrew
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#4 - 2013-05-01 22:46:38 UTC
Trolly McForumalt wrote:
sabre906 wrote:
Trolly McForumalt wrote:
As we all know, ECM currently operates by denying target lock capabilities to the affected ship. Either ECM works and feels overpowered (to the victim) or it doesn't and feels useless (to the user).

I propose that instead of preventing a ship from locking a target, ECM instead adds a predefined 'chance to miss' modifier to an attacking vessel (using either turrets or missiles) or drone. I don't have specific suggestions as to what percent that should be as that should be determined by testing. A stacking penalty would have to apply. The module should work across all races and move away from the current model of modules having racial strengths.

What do people think? Good/bad idea? Already been proposed (I didn't see anything similar after a short search)?


What is your change to miss on that point, higher or lower than currently?P


???

Not sure what you are asking (or if you are serious) but...

The module would simply add a modifier to the affected ship that would make it miss it's intended target.

At first I envisioned it as only aiding the ship that equipped it, but I saw that as making ECM less effective in gangs or fleets. I do not know how this would (or could) work in relation to other types of negative effects such as neuts, webs, etc. Also have them receive a chance to fail? I don't know how hard this would be to code.

Don't sweat it, he makes very little sense ayt the best of times.

On a serious note though, do you not feel that this form of ECM would be stepping on the toes of tracking disruptors?

Friends
Gimme more Cynos
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#5 - 2013-05-01 23:16:51 UTC
Let ecm allways hit and introduce a DR, which halves the duration till it becomes useless if used against the same target over and over..

Something like:

1 hit = 30 seconds
2 hit = 15 seconds
3 hit = 7.5 seconds
4 hit = useless

Let the timer reset after 60 seconds or so of no ecm and you are fine (just examples...).

PS: As some of you may have noticed, it's stolen shamelessly from another game, but ecm will allways be unbalanced in some ways if it remains luck based.
Zan Shiro
Doomheim
#6 - 2013-05-01 23:20:07 UTC
missiles can't miss...that's their tradeoff for not being instant hit and having a damage calc with variablies like radii and such. This won't affect missile boats


And it leads back to the same viscious cycle current ecm has....it is counterable.

Currrent ECM: implants, eccm, sensor backup array, information warfare links (worth noting caldari cs get this soon, 2 shield links, 1 info warfare a good mix I am thinking on a vulture) , the newish sensor skills, etc.


YOur ecm: tracking bonuses on ship (if applicable), webs (on boosted ships for even more fun), te, tc, etc.


The only difference is your idea has counters you would actually like to fit on your ship. That's the funny part about e-war....its supposed to be a pita to counter. I would love to not have some ships dual prop to run the AB to avoid scram.


See you'd have to have this mod give a reasonable chance to miss a target. That means it has to prevent a vindi with 1 tc and 1 te and a web loki backup hitting a target. this set up is basically a return to 90% web and then you have vindi tracking bonus + TE/TC.

The strength of the current ecm is mild compared to what this would need to be.
Trolly McForumalt
Doomheim
#7 - 2013-05-01 23:58:31 UTC
Hakan MacTrew wrote:


Don't sweat it, he makes very little sense ayt the best of times.

On a serious note though, do you not feel that this form of ECM would be stepping on the toes of tracking disruptors?


Perhaps. Although TDs can reduce your dps to zero if fully applied. My proposed change could never do that - only reduce your dps by a certain percentage.
Trolly McForumalt
Doomheim
#8 - 2013-05-02 00:02:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Trolly McForumalt
Zan Shiro wrote:
missiles can't miss...that's their tradeoff for not being instant hit and having a damage calc with variablies like radii and such. This won't affect missile boats


And it leads back to the same viscious cycle current ecm has....it is counterable.

Currrent ECM: implants, eccm, sensor backup array, information warfare links (worth noting caldari cs get this soon, 2 shield links, 1 info warfare a good mix I am thinking on a vulture) , the newish sensor skills, etc.


YOur ecm: tracking bonuses on ship (if applicable), webs (on boosted ships for even more fun), te, tc, etc.


The only difference is your idea has counters you would actually like to fit on your ship. That's the funny part about e-war....its supposed to be a pita to counter. I would love to not have some ships dual prop to run the AB to avoid scram.


See you'd have to have this mod give a reasonable chance to miss a target. That means it has to prevent a vindi with 1 tc and 1 te and a web loki backup hitting a target. this set up is basically a return to 90% web and then you have vindi tracking bonus + TE/TC.

The strength of the current ecm is mild compared to what this would need to be.


OK I see what you think I'm suggesting. I'm not talking about altering an existing mechanic like turret tracking. I'm talking about a new 'chance to miss' stat levied against affected vessels. I don't know exactly how you would design a counter but it would probably just lessen the 'chance to miss' affect. Basically this would function like a reverse shield/resistance amp - it would just reduce the target ship's dps by a small percentage.

Edit: Although this would probably not effect drone ships because in order to work the individual drones would have to be targeted. So there is one more counter.
Pan Dora
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#9 - 2013-05-02 00:47:22 UTC
And what about every other module that the actual ECM disable?

Also, read signature.

-CCP would boost ECM so it also block the ability of buthurt posting.
Felsusguy
Panopticon Engineering
#10 - 2013-05-02 07:25:49 UTC
Gimme more Cynos wrote:
Let ecm allways hit and introduce a DR, which halves the duration till it becomes useless if used against the same target over and over..

Bad idea. Even with a short duration, it breaks locks, and thus with a short duration it would actually work better on targets with slow targeting speeds.

The Caldari put business before pleasure. The Gallente put business in pleasure.
DitchDigger
Hibi Proletariat
#11 - 2013-05-02 15:57:21 UTC
how would this work with warp scramblers?
Marcus Harikari
#12 - 2013-05-03 05:57:44 UTC
So you're proposing to turn ECM into turret disruption? But why? We already have something called "turret disruption" QuestionQuestionQuestion
Hopelesshobo
Hoboland
#13 - 2013-05-04 14:00:20 UTC
Gimme more Cynos wrote:
Let ecm allways hit and introduce a DR, which halves the duration till it becomes useless if used against the same target over and over..

Something like:

1 hit = 30 seconds
2 hit = 15 seconds
3 hit = 7.5 seconds
4 hit = useless

Let the timer reset after 60 seconds or so of no ecm and you are fine (just examples...).

PS: As some of you may have noticed, it's stolen shamelessly from another game, but ecm will allways be unbalanced in some ways if it remains luck based.


Ok, so now every ship in the game will now fly with 1x jammer and as many sensor boosters as they can fit to lock the other person first and jam him for a guarenteed 52.5 seconds before he starts getting shot.

Trolly McForumalt wrote:
Hakan MacTrew wrote:


Don't sweat it, he makes very little sense ayt the best of times.

On a serious note though, do you not feel that this form of ECM would be stepping on the toes of tracking disruptors?


Perhaps. Although TDs can reduce your dps to zero if fully applied. My proposed change could never do that - only reduce your dps by a certain percentage.


TDs will never lower someones DPS to 0 because they will never reduce someones tracking to 0 rads/sec and they will never place someones optimal and falloff at 0 meters. The counter to TDs are TC, TE, TL, webs and missiles.

The issue you really want to bring up in the OP is the fact that you are under the influence of the RNG gods whenever you fly an ECM boat. This is just a matter of life that you must learn to love if you want to fly ECM. Fly TD ships if you want a set amount of disruption everytime.

Who knows, if everyone started flying with TDs all the time, maybe we would see a resurrection of the Raven for PVP.

Lowering the average to make you look better since 2012.
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#14 - 2013-05-04 21:10:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Reaver Glitterstim
I have an idea to help fix ECM. The friend or foe missiles (F.o.F.) are a start in the right direction, but it needs to be expanded to turrets and it needs to be a viable weapon system without being great, and they all need to be usable on a standard fit, so no requirement of swapping to new weapons, because you can't do that once you get into combat and discover you are being jammed.

I propose that when you begin locking a target, the reticle will pop up to the top of your screen even before you finish locking them. This will allow you to select the target of preference even if you are not locked onto them. And when you get ECM jammed, these reticles should remain at the top and simply look different to show that they are not currently locked.

If you are using launchers, you can swap your ammo to F.o.F. missiles from your cargohold and continue firing at them. But I'm also proposing that the selected target would get some sort of advantage to being hit - a small advantage mind you - that would make it so that if your fleet mates are out of the way and allow a clear shot to your "target", you could always or almost always still hit them. But in a big unorganized clusterfuck of ships, you'd probably still hit random targets, often friendlies. Also, short range missiles need a F.o.F. counterpart.

For turrets, I'm thinking something along the lines of a really tremendous tracking penalty, like pull it all the way down to 10%. And along with this, there should also be an automatic timer or something that prevents you from shooting immediately after selecting your target but still allows you to fire when jammed. That way you can't pop out of cloak in a Maelstrom and blap a frigate that hadn't yet got a chance to start moving - the Maelstrom would still need to wait about as long as it takes to target the frigate before it can start firing. So say this frigate is a Griffin, and would normally take the Maelstrom 12 seconds to lock it, but the Griffin jams the Maelstrom during this time. The Maelstrom can still fire at the Griffin after the 12 seconds are up, but at 90% reduced tracking. If the Griffin makes the slightest movement, those 1400mm artilleries are gonna miss. So if the Griffin gets blapped, it's his own fault.

What do you guys think of that?

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Mra Rednu
Vanishing Point.
#15 - 2013-05-04 21:18:14 UTC
ECM isn't broken.