Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You just made ECM stupid op in curbstomps and worthless everywhere else.

this is very true and a lot of times (like this OP) all they do is make its stupid overpowered


the main problem with ECM is people don't understand ECM

everyone either complains they are always jammed or that their jams never land

So to start off, I really didn't think it sounded that bad when I wrote it down first time and came back 10 minutes later.

The issue I have with ECM, isn't that it works or doesn't, it's that there are something like 100 modules because of the racial split that is generated from having too many modules just to work on each race of ship. (ECM and ECCM) This is the only EWAR type that suffers this kind of module bloat.

I know if someone said just remove all the racial variants, there would also be a bit of complaints made. Since module tiericide is happening, and recons are being balanced, it just seemed to make sense at the time.

ECM in it's nature is "If the ship has a bonus for it, it has a decent chance of landing." Also, the ships with the bonus also has a range increases on it as well.

I originally figured the number 2, because bonused ships would have 4 points of lock reduction and 5 for recons. This, I definitely feel was on the higher edge of power, but not completely overpowered.

If the module had base 2 lock reduction, with 10 km range, it wouldn't be used completely by solo players since you would have to sacrifice a lot of mids that were to be used for prop/tackle.

A ship that has bonuses for it, rarely fly solo, and when they are used in conjunction with another DPS ship, the same effect would happen, but your teamwork would allow tackle to land and ship to blow up. In fleet battles, limiting logi from locking more than 2-3 people is definitely on the strong side, and most ships have more than 6 locks, meaning no single module can shut down a ship.

Now that I read it again, nix the rig change, that is definitely more broken than I thought it was.

ECM is not a module for solo work, and I figured that the lock reduction vs current effect would allow it to stay decently strong, with only minimal change of actual effect. If I'm wrong, then meh, glad I was able to get this idea off my chest.

damps are chance based beyond optimal, and damps are even worse than jams.

Howabout keep it as a chance-based module but make it treat all of the target ship's potential target locks as discrete units, and jam all of them separately? For instance, if you have a 60% jam chance against the target, you would have a 60% chance of jamming each of their potential locks. If it's a ship that can lock up to 5 targets and has 2 already locked, you might jam out 3 potential targets, including one of the targets that was already locked. The ship can still lock two targets (only two) and has one still acquired. The other must be re-acquired. If during re-acquiring the target, the lock unit being used gets jammed, the target locking will fail and will have to be manually restarted from the beginning.

This would effectively be a nerf to ECM, so it should be balanced out with a buff to ECM strength to compensate.

Wouldn't that be a huge buff to them? I'm not really into ECM all that much so I'm just going off theory here, but doesn't that make it immensely easier for a Rook or Balckbird to keep several ships locked out regardless of there sensor types?

Just give it scripts and make it target Drone Control Range and Drone Bandwidth. Boom problem with the imbalance solved. Functions like damps and other EWAR by removing a % of DCR or DB based on optimal/falloff variables. Will apply an effect 100% of the time, but the % will vary by engagement.

May have to add a module for drones that increase Drone Bandwidth, but with a counter to said module available I don't see that being an issue.

I have my own version of ecm overhaul and it's basically centered around eccm not being so bad.
It goes like this.

ECM is fine, the only problem I see is that there is no counter to its randomness.

Make it so that each additional ECCM after 1 makes you ignore one succesful jam.

As in 1 ECCM -> makes you resistant
2 ECCM -> make you more resistant and first jam will be void and if second cycle lands you are jammed, otherwise it gets reset.
(resulting in having to jam 2 times in a row to get a jam in)
3 ECCM -> more resistant and first 2 successful jams are void (resulting in having to jam 3 times in a row to get a jam in)
It stops there and 4th ECCM just makes you more resistant again.

To not make logis overpowered with this you can make it so that remote assisting modules null the secondary effects of ECCM.

Think that is overpowered?

You are fitting 2 middle slot modules on a ship to be immune to a single cycle and 3 middle slots to be immune to 2 cycles.
You severely gimp your tackle abilities so people that want to avoid PVP can use stabs against you and you probably wont have enough scram points to hold them.

As far as PVP goes this still works to disrupts logi chains and remote repairs as they have no secondary effects.

Might be hard to code but I think this would fix the randomness of ECM for those that specifically fit to counter it.

ECCM is pretty effective, and as far as I know, most people only ever fit one to any given ship. Logistics has a pretty high base sensor strength, so with one ECCM they become extremely resistant to ECM. Sometimes logistics might fit a second ECCM if they consider it utterly important that they never get jammed even once. But the real reason ECCM modules aren't very valued is that in most fights, nobody uses ECM against you. If you want to make ECCM less unattractive, you need to give it a use that works when nobody is trying to jam you.

I could see making an ancillary ECCM module which could prevent one successful jam and in doing so it would eat one charge of whatever it uses to resist the jams. This would be its only effect--it would not increase sensor strength. It could be a 60-second cycle module that holds, say, 3 charges (with a 5 minute reload timer) and you just turn it on and have it cycle when you think you're in danger of being jammed. It only uses a charge if it prevents a jam that would otherwise have been successful. It would also create an effect around your ship to make it clear to others that you have it fit. Some pattern that creates a dissonance with the ECCM visual effect, making it extra obvious if you are using both.

ECCM is quite effective against player ships. I haven't tested it against belt rats but I know that NPC EWAR is highly imbalanced. This is another topic of discussion, but I agree, no single belt rat should be superior to a player in EWAR strength of any kind.