Player Features and Ideas Discussion

i thought of this idea alot and this is what i came up with
when you are trying to use ecm on an enemy ship, you are basically using your ship's computer CPU to 'hack' into another ship's computer to try and disable the targeting computer of said ship. you can allocate more CPU of your own ship, by using more then 1 ECM module. all the while you are trying to hack the enemy targeting computer, it tries to outsmart the 'hacking attempts'. this making 'hacking' a two-way street. it also chance based as we all know.

so, here is my idea
think of it as a number lock, both from your end at the targeted ship.
when you use your ECM module, it spins through all the numberlocks until it finds the correct one and then moves to the next one. if it gets all the numbers correct the ECM 'hacks' the targetting computer of the targeted ship, while that computer resets and try to come up with a new number.

now suppose you want to implement this with a ship bonus, like the Griffin or Scorpion etc.
you could argue that these ships can cycle faster through all the possibilities to find the current code
or that these straight-up ignore false numbers (so instead of looking through 10 digits they only need to look through 9 or 8)
*same goed for overheating

now suppose you want to implement this with eccm (or remote eccm)
you could argue that the code you are looking for contains and extra digit, meaning that it is more difficult to hack the code

one of the things i like about this is the interface. it is easy to understand (so new/noob friendly). it is also entertaining as you could actually see that you are a near a succesfull hack or not. it is also not out of the realm of possibilites to take into account the current sensor strength ships have at the moment because instead of digits (0 through 9) you could also use letters or symbols. so sensor strength '30' could be 26 letters + 4 digits' or any other combination, or just symbols.

in my ideal setup, you could see the numbers rolling if you mouse-over your ecm module to get the feedback you are looking for or maybe a small optional pop-up window telling you how the hacking is going along.

And burst jammers?

as far as interface
burst jammers could me made to look like (ever) spinning locks for the duration of the modules cycle time
the target computer is forced to do an override reset

as far as mechanics, it always finds the hack (assuming the ship is in range)

ECM Completely redundant

It's so easily understandable that you never once explain how it will actually function, or differ from the current system from a gameplay perspective.

If my ECM Taranis tries to jam a drake with a multispec, how do my chances at doing so compare with the current system? Easier? Harder? 1/10,000,000,000?

How? It's still 'are they jammed y/n'. There's no difference there. The feedback is utterly meaningless if it's all still RNG chance based.

What's the point in any of this if the system you are proposing is more or less exactly the same as the current one, from a front end perspective? Is the average user going to notice the slightest bit of diferance, other than some randomly scrolling numbers that aren't actually connected to anything in the RNG, chance based system you are proposing?

What if instead of preventing locks, a successful ECM application blocked all other targets other than the ship jamming you? That fits with how jamming actually works, and would allow ships to actually do something about thier situation, like they can with most other debilitating ewar.

Wouldn't that make ECM boats pretty much useless? Any time 2 or 3 boats with long-range weapons got jammed by the same ship they could just lock on and blast it to pieces. You'd almost want your jams to FAIL because when you get off a jam you then become that person's only target.