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ECM Drones
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Austneal
Nero Fazione
#1 - 2012-07-18 03:23:09 UTC
I'd like to start this off by saying that I am a user of ECM drones. If there is enough space in my drone bay, I will have a flight of them with me.

To be honest, I dont see much of a problem with ECM modules / ECM based ships... If you want to lose a slot on your ship or a dedicated ship in your fleet to jamming, then go for it P

What I have noticed, are the supposed "overpowered" ECM drones. It seems almost too easy to me for someone to launch a flight of light / medium ECM drones, get a lucky jam, and run away (leaving those nasy pirates high and dry) Even if the drones dont get a jam on the first try, they just need to be recalled, and launched again.

I'd like to suggest a simple change that would still allow for ECM drones to be used for their GTFO-ability, while giving the other guy a fighting chance: Make the jamming effect occur on the end of the drone's cycle, instead of on the beginning.

Currently, jamming a tackling frigate with ECM drones is fairly easy, given their lower sensor strength. With the proposed change, it would give the frigate a chance to react and kill the drones before the jam is applied. If the drones aren't delt with, he (being a frig) is in greater danger of being jammed

On the other hand, being in a BC or other larger ship, it would take longer to lock the drones (and thus a smaller chance of being able to deal with the drones before their jam is applied) However, these larger ships also have a higher resistance to jamming.

Idk if this has been proposed before or not, but please tell me what you think Big smile
Alexei Tourani
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#2 - 2012-07-18 03:43:54 UTC
+1

I fully agree with this, ECM drones may not need a nerf but being able to recall and re-launch them for 2 - 3 second reload cycles on ECM, until you get a jam and leave them on is not a fair tactic. Using this you are able to jam things much easier than with regular ECM modules.
Veshta Yoshida
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#3 - 2012-07-18 03:50:11 UTC
Wouldn't it make more sense to make the jam quality size dependent so that it fits with everything else in Eve .. as in Lights = 5s, Medium = 10s, Heavy = 20s .. tweak cycle times slightly.
Could probably get away with also adding eWar drones to the bonus for the relevant ships so that the ships that have to make an actual sacrifice get something out of it (+10%/lvl can be huge if applied to web drones, ecm drones etc.).

Or one could just make ECM drones break locks and nothing more. Addresses the issue of smaller hulls being hit extra hard (faster locks) while still being able to function as GTFO. Elegant in its simplicity
Bouh Revetoile
In Wreck we thrust
#4 - 2012-07-18 09:36:18 UTC
One of the things which make ECM drones much beter than any other EWAR drones is that they don't suffer stacking penalty. That mean that if you field 5 heavy ECM drones, you have 5 free multispec jammers instead of the one dampener for exemple with heavy SD drones or one tracking disruptor with 5 heavy TD drones.

I suspect the problem is the same with regular ECM and that applying stacking penalties for ECM, or removing stacking penalties for other EWAR would do great things to balance them all.
Astroniomix
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#5 - 2012-07-18 09:52:52 UTC
Bouh Revetoile wrote:
One of the things which make ECM drones much beter than any other EWAR drones is that they don't suffer stacking penalty. That mean that if you field 5 heavy ECM drones, you have 5 free multispec jammers instead of the one dampener for exemple with heavy SD drones or one tracking disruptor with 5 heavy TD drones.

I suspect the problem is the same with regular ECM and that applying stacking penalties for ECM, or removing stacking penalties for other EWAR would do great things to balance them all.

Removing stacking penalties for ewar proably isn't a good idea. Being able to sensor damp someone's lock range to 0 would be lololoverpowered.
Mike Whiite
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#6 - 2012-07-18 10:29:10 UTC
Bouh Revetoile wrote:
One of the things which make ECM drones much beter than any other EWAR drones is that they don't suffer stacking penalty. That mean that if you field 5 heavy ECM drones, you have 5 free multispec jammers instead of the one dampener for exemple with heavy SD drones or one tracking disruptor with 5 heavy TD drones.

I suspect the problem is the same with regular ECM and that applying stacking penalties for ECM, or removing stacking penalties for other EWAR would do great things to balance them all.



EMC doesn't stack so no stack penalty. put un two unites at once and if both succeed the time unable to lock doesn't become longer it stays the same.

what you call stacking would be the same as make the hit chance of a turret stack with every extra turret.


Although I understand the need to look at how EMC drones work, I consider it a bad example that EMC drones should prohibe people from fleeing combat.

Usualy a Pirate jumps the Ratting or mining carebear, that has absolutly no fighting chance with his PvE fitted ship. If he or she makes space for a couple of EMC drones to be able to flee, good for him, bring a Smartbomb solves a lot of problems.

what is next, not allowing players fit more than one Stabilisers.

Maybe a drone needs a cool down time when it's recalled to the drone bay, sounds more as if it's a solution to the recalling launching problem.
Laechyd Eldgorn
Avanto
Hole Control
#7 - 2012-07-18 10:34:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Laechyd Eldgorn
Austneal wrote:
I'd like to start this off by saying that I am a user of ECM drones. If there is enough space in my drone bay, I will have a flight of them with me.

To be honest, I dont see much of a problem with ECM modules / ECM based ships... If you want to lose a slot on your ship or a dedicated ship in your fleet to jamming, then go for it P

What I have noticed, are the supposed "overpowered" ECM drones. It seems almost too easy to me for someone to launch a flight of light / medium ECM drones, get a lucky jam, and run away (leaving those nasy pirates high and dry) Even if the drones dont get a jam on the first try, they just need to be recalled, and launched again.

I'd like to suggest a simple change that would still allow for ECM drones to be used for their GTFO-ability, while giving the other guy a fighting chance: Make the jamming effect occur on the end of the drone's cycle, instead of on the beginning.

Currently, jamming a tackling frigate with ECM drones is fairly easy, given their lower sensor strength. With the proposed change, it would give the frigate a chance to react and kill the drones before the jam is applied. If the drones aren't delt with, he (being a frig) is in greater danger of being jammed

On the other hand, being in a BC or other larger ship, it would take longer to lock the drones (and thus a smaller chance of being able to deal with the drones before their jam is applied) However, these larger ships also have a higher resistance to jamming.

Idk if this has been proposed before or not, but please tell me what you think Big smile


first of all, there's plenty of frigates with high sensor strenght. if you fly frigates with low sensor strenght it is your own fault. if you go and have a look at different ship stats you see a pattern where minmatar are fast and have fast lock but they have low sensor strenght and short lock range etc. so if you are MAD at getting jammed find a ship with high sensor strenght, maybe even have some odd eccm module, plenty of frigs have enough slots for it if you don't just max out your speed which is somewhat irrelevant if you go for bigger targets.

what i am trying to say here is that maybe use imagination first and buy a non-conventional ship for the job with abilities and modules you need before trying to change the game for you :P
Bouh Revetoile
In Wreck we thrust
#8 - 2012-07-18 11:56:03 UTC
What I mean is that 5 ECM drones instead of one multiply your chance of jamming the target by 5 whereas using 5 TD drones instead of 4 is almost useless ; and in the case of heavy EWAR drones, 5 ECM drones are exactly 5 multispec jammer whereas 5 TD drones are equivalent to 1 TD module.

I bet this is one of the reason they are so used and so useful.

And this is the same with regular ECM modules.

In fact, they kind of stack together if you calculate statistics, but all in all, effectiveness of each module or drone is not reduce each time you add one more and hence you greatly benefit from using more ECM modules or drones on one target.

Indeed ECM calculation are not made on the effect itself but on the chances of applying it, but that does not matter.

tl;dr : even with 100 sensor strength, 100 light ECM drones permajam you ; though 100 TD drones are not more useful than 8 of them.

I demand stacking penalty for ECM.
Austneal
Nero Fazione
#9 - 2012-07-18 14:10:38 UTC
Laechyd Eldgorn wrote:
Austneal wrote:
I'd like to start this off by saying that I am a user of ECM drones. If there is enough space in my drone bay, I will have a flight of them with me.

To be honest, I dont see much of a problem with ECM modules / ECM based ships... If you want to lose a slot on your ship or a dedicated ship in your fleet to jamming, then go for it P

What I have noticed, are the supposed "overpowered" ECM drones. It seems almost too easy to me for someone to launch a flight of light / medium ECM drones, get a lucky jam, and run away (leaving those nasy pirates high and dry) Even if the drones dont get a jam on the first try, they just need to be recalled, and launched again.

I'd like to suggest a simple change that would still allow for ECM drones to be used for their GTFO-ability, while giving the other guy a fighting chance: Make the jamming effect occur on the end of the drone's cycle, instead of on the beginning.

Currently, jamming a tackling frigate with ECM drones is fairly easy, given their lower sensor strength. With the proposed change, it would give the frigate a chance to react and kill the drones before the jam is applied. If the drones aren't delt with, he (being a frig) is in greater danger of being jammed

On the other hand, being in a BC or other larger ship, it would take longer to lock the drones (and thus a smaller chance of being able to deal with the drones before their jam is applied) However, these larger ships also have a higher resistance to jamming.

Idk if this has been proposed before or not, but please tell me what you think Big smile


first of all, there's plenty of frigates with high sensor strenght. if you fly frigates with low sensor strenght it is your own fault. if you go and have a look at different ship stats you see a pattern where minmatar are fast and have fast lock but they have low sensor strenght and short lock range etc. so if you are MAD at getting jammed find a ship with high sensor strenght, maybe even have some odd eccm module, plenty of frigs have enough slots for it if you don't just max out your speed which is somewhat irrelevant if you go for bigger target

what i am trying to say here is that maybe use imagination first and buy a non-conventional ship for the job with abilities and modules you need before trying to change the game for you :P


I don't believe you really read my thread... I would hardly call this idea a "change for me". Also, frigates have a lower sensor strength than other ships, generally speaking.

Quote:
if you fly frigates with low sensor strength it is your own fault.

That statement is so idiotic, I'm not even going to dignify it with a response.

Quote:
what i am trying to say here is that maybe use imagination first and buy a non-conventional ship for the job with abilities and modules you need before trying to change the game for you :P

Lets see how far imagination gets you when a flight of ECM drones insta-jams you regardless of whether you have ECCM fit or not.

Tbh, you sound like someone who enjoys his broken low risk "get away" drones a bit much
Spugg Galdon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2012-07-18 15:43:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Spugg Galdon
Bouh Revetoile wrote:
What I mean is that 5 ECM drones instead of one multiply your chance of jamming the target by 5 whereas using 5 TD drones instead of 4 is almost useless ; and in the case of heavy EWAR drones, 5 ECM drones are exactly 5 multispec jammer whereas 5 TD drones are equivalent to 1 TD module.

I bet this is one of the reason they are so used and so useful.

And this is the same with regular ECM modules.

In fact, they kind of stack together if you calculate statistics, but all in all, effectiveness of each module or drone is not reduce each time you add one more and hence you greatly benefit from using more ECM modules or drones on one target.

Indeed ECM calculation are not made on the effect itself but on the chances of applying it, but that does not matter.

tl;dr : even with 100 sensor strength, 100 light ECM drones permajam you ; though 100 TD drones are not more useful than 8 of them.

I demand stacking penalty for ECM.



I've constantly mentioned this in ECM drone threads. I don't think stacking is required for ECM drones but I dod think their stats are too high.

The other EWAR drones need their stacking penelaties to apply when more than 5 drones are being used on the same target instead of as soon as you use more than 1. Also, TD, SD and ED drones need to have stronger capabilities along with small and medium web drones having stronger web effects (large web drones are fine apart from heavy stacking penalties)
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#11 - 2012-07-18 17:12:01 UTC
Not buying into this.

Noone is supposed to have a flawless strategy, hunter or prey. The effort required to break that tackle you described reflects just that, an effort.

If pilots have the foresight to plan ahead, mount warp stabs, prep a flight of ecm drones they will probably lose as a result, or whatever... THAT deserves to be respected as well.

Your expectation to have a better success rate against pilots that have prepared themselves against your tactics does not create a need for change.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Austneal
Nero Fazione
#12 - 2012-07-24 16:18:02 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:
Not buying into this.

Noone is supposed to have a flawless strategy, hunter or prey. The effort required to break that tackle you described reflects just that, an effort.

If pilots have the foresight to plan ahead, mount warp stabs, prep a flight of ecm drones they will probably lose as a result, or whatever... THAT deserves to be respected as well.

Your expectation to have a better success rate against pilots that have prepared themselves against your tactics does not create a need for change.

Yet another ECM monkey.

Its no effort at all when you deploy 5 light ECM drones, and are able to break tackle instantly before the attacker has a chance to do anything. Its not effort, its dumb luck that could really use a looking at.