Player Features and Ideas Discussion

If so, if the BB would need to focus all of it's jams on a single target in order to match the effectiveness of the Celestis, why have you not balanced the ships in other ways?

Specifically, if you vision of ECM is that it is situationally effective against a single target, then in order to be objectively balanced the Caldari ship would need to compensated in other ways. As it stands now, you want it to be no more effective at ECM, but slower, with less tank, and significantly lower DPS.

Why then, under this "CCP Vision" would anyone want to use the thing?

ECM has two related fatal problems, and nothing you do will fix them, short of completely overhauling the underlying mechanics.

First, the success of ECM is based solely on a dice roll. Random dice rolls suck. They provide no sense of agency. A player has no control over the direction in which the dice will land; no amount of knowledge or skill will affect it. Meanwhile, it can royally screw over a player at any moment. Anyone who has been jammed for three cycles (a full minute) by a single ECM drone knows the feeling; as does any Falcon pilot who gets taken apart without a single of his jammers working. Random dice rolls arbitrarily screwing over players are the reason players start save-rolling in offline games. Because a player would rather have to replay an hour of content than to take it up the posterior from a random number generator.

Second, ECM completely locks down a ship, no matter what the pilot may do. If ECM succeeds, on a completely random chance, the pilot can do absolutely nothing to counter it for a full twenty seconds, every time. If sensor dampeners are used, that time of ineffectiveness balloons quickly.

These two factors -- the randomness of the outcome, and the catastrophic effects of a successful ECM jam against the targeted player or of an unsuccessful series of jams against the ECM pilot, make ECM an absolutely awful mechanic. ECM pilots hate the randomness, because they may lose a ship at any time for no good reason. Other players hate ECM because there is nothing meaningful they can do to counter it. Fitting ECCM does not count; it's still chance-based, and has no other counters, unlike every other form of ewar.

Contrast this with sensor dampeners -- a player can close range to counteract range dampening, and once the lock resolves scan resolution dampening is useless; or with tracking disruptors -- a player can load longer-range ammo, or tighten his orbit, use webs and scram, and otherwise counter the effects. There is nothing a player can meaningfully do that counters ECM. A player can only fit an ECCM mod or two, at substantial cost to his tanking ability, and risk that module getting him killed without every encountering an ECM boat, and hope for the best. At no time should a game mechanic force a player to rely on a prayer instead of on skill. There's nothing wrong with using dice rolls, but they should not be the only factor affecting the outcome.

Probably the best idea I've seen so far for an ECM mechanic, is to have ECM break lock based on the same chance as now, then to prevent the target from locking for a fairly short period of time that is reduced based on the target's sensor strength relative to the jammer strength. This will still play hell with logistics, and will be effective against other ships, but it won't be quite as stupidly overpowered and frustrating as it currently is.

Sensor damps are fine the way they are. They work great in fleets, where each ship can fit a sensor damp and put it on the opposing FC, logistics, and other useful ships. I recall a fight where my lock time on another Guardian was 16 seconds; 8 seconds or so on a battleship. Even without ECM, that neutralizes the entire logistics wing -- by the time you can lock and land reps, the target is already dead. With ECM, it's part of the reason big fleets no longer use Guardians and Basilisks.

You also fix ECM drones at the same time with this mechanic. (Ie. ECM drones have such low strength that they still work for GTFO, but are highly will not jam them out for any length of time.



Sensor damps are fine on unbonused hulls as part of a fleet doctrine.

They are sub-par on bonused hulls as part of small gangs. This can be fixed by buffing the hulls. The 7.5% Damp strength bonus on the Celestis should be immediately replicated to the Lach and Arazu.

(Equally I'd argue the 7.5% TD Bonus should be immediate replicated to the Curse and Pilgrim.... which would allow you to nerf TDs on unbonused hulls to a similar effectiveness to Damps).

I'd like to see balanced fits. For example, the 2 Web, 1 TP Rapier is IMHO a good mix, taking advantage of both EWAR bonuses to avoid a staking penalty.

Making mixed Damping+Pointing Zus/Lach's viable is harder.* Partly it means making damps more effective on bonused hulls (right now, 2 bonused Damps is barely good enough to shut down an enemy ship 7.5% bonuses will make that easier, and will make using only 1 Damp agaisnt enemy LR ships more viable); but moreover it requires fixing Armour tanking.

The thing most limiting the use of Damps on Lachs/Zus is the fact that their natural Gang is a LR, "nano" gang. Because there is no viable "mobile" Armour concept (AHACs are designed to enter into decisive engagements** and win; "mobile" tactics are designed to avoid decisive engagements), this means Lachs/Zus are primarily used as shield tankers (Lachs almost entirely, Zu's have some viable armour fits). This means they use between 3-4 of their midslots for tank, leaving only 2-3 midslots for EWAR, ie only 1-2 Mids for points and 0-2 Mids for Damps. Couple this with their anemic Cap and fitting a Damping+Pointing Lach/Zu involves far too many trade-offs, for very limited benefits.

Tl;dr: a "mobile" tactical option for Armour tankers is needed to make mixed Damp/Pointing Lach's a more usual set up.

* I'd argue that making a mixed Pointing+Damping Keres is pointless. Interceptors do the pointing better at that hull size; so any reworking of the Keres should make it more combat focused. IE. keeping the Maulus' bonuses and adding 2 x Drone bonuses associated with the EAF skill.
** In Eve, this translates as any engagement where you are fighting with a significant proportion of your force tackled, or likely to become tackled in short order.

I would suggest buffing Arby's base PG to at least 600 units to enable this:

[Arbitrator, 800m+2xMed]
Damage Control II
800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Reactor Control Unit II

Experimental 10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Tracking Disruptor II, Optimal Range Disruption Script
Tracking Disruptor II, Optimal Range Disruption Script
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Cap Booster 800

50W Infectious Power System Malfunction
50W Infectious Power System Malfunction
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]


[Arbitrator, 1600mm+4xSmall]
Damage Control II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Reactor Control Unit II

Experimental 10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Tracking Disruptor II, Optimal Range Disruption Script
Tracking Disruptor II, Optimal Range Disruption Script
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Cap Booster 800

Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Honestly, Belicose and Celestis has the same numbers although Arby requires more due to the capwarfare modules.

Any news on the ECM fix yet? If any boosting to ECM ships happens before this fix I will be sad. I think it's kind of the only reason why such boosting could be acceptable.

Are we talking a massive nerf, a tiny nerf, a total rethink, what? I'd be ok with totally removing it.

Can we please just rework ECM completely so it isn't the most unfun mechanic in the entire goddamn game, then we can finally take all the small gang/solo pvpers off suicide watch.

Seriously every time I want to go out and pvp I just have to remind myself that a flight of ec-300s have a ~30% chance to jam most subcaps, play DotA, and consider unsubbing. It's actually a big timesaver.

Not holding my breath, there have been so many excellent suggestions for reworking or replacing ECM and it's been years without progress

EDIT: Wow so they're not changing anything about how ECM is a fundamentally awful mechanic, just giving anyone a 25% increase to sensor strength, so they merely have a 90% chance of getting permajammed by a falcon instead of 100%.

Guess this game is destined to be **** forever

Ok, with the recently proposed changes to Damps I'm completely convinced the 10% bonus to Optimal range on damps is worthless.

Take a LR Damping fit Celestis:

[Celestis, 1600mm plate]
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Signal Amplifier II

Experimental 10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I, Targeting Range Dampening Script
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I, Targeting Range Dampening Script
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I, Targeting Range Dampening Script
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I, Targeting Range Dampening Script

Drone Link Augmentor II
Salvager I
Small Remote Armor Repair System II

Medium Inverted Signal Field Projector I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I


Vespa EC-600 x5

The ship has a Maximum lock range of 122Km. Without that Sig Amp it's 94Km.

The damps have an optimal of 81Km and 90km Falloff @ 61.3% Damps.

Without the hull optimal bonus the damps have an optimal of 54Km. Which means, that @ 90km you are using your damps in half falloff. Last time I tested damps (a while ago, so it may have changed) falloff worked like guns: @ max fall off = 50% chance of hitting. For a rough order of magnitude then, half fall-off is a 75% chance of working. Given that you will be applying 2 damps to a target (even with a 7.5% bonus, this is the amount needed to take a ship out of the fight in most cases) this means that there is only a 6.25% chance of NO DAMPS LANDING ON THE TARGET, at 90Km without the hull optimal hull bonus.

With the hull bonus, you will be in approx 10% fall-off. Roughly this means a 95% chance to hit the target (fall-off isn't linear, so I know that's wrong... but it's good enough). This means that you have a 0.25% chance of missing with Damps.

So, the 10% optimal bonus for damps only gives you a 6% decrease in complete failure, in an average usage.

Personally, I'd take a 6.25% chance I miss with both damps (for only 10 seconds) and a bonus that is actually worthwhile than a near certainty of keeping both damps on.

Moreover, if you are concerned with the range of your damps there is already a solution: Medium Particle Dispersion Projectors.
Swapping one CCC for a PDP extends the optimal on your Damps to 65Km (without the hull bonus). @90Km your in 28% fall off, so lets say a 15% chance of missing with your damps. This equates to a 2.25% chance to miss with both damps at the same time.

(With 2 PDP Damp optimal is 78Km: in the fit above, you can run the MWD and Damps for 1:35 without the CCCs or be cap stable with only the Damps, so an Inverted Signal Field Projector, 2xPDP fit is viable.)

The reason I looked at the possibility of both damps failing rather than the chance of both damps succeeding is related to the tactics damps are used in. Damps are usually stacked on a target and friendly ships usually attempt to maintain range. This means that 1 damp permanently on a target, with a second often on it is enough to achieve the effect you are after. This means that right now (ie. without any range bonus) in circumstances where damps are useful, they can be used effectively out to about 100km.

Tl;dr :
Now CCP is boosting the optimal range of damps; damp optimal is a solved problem and does not need the Celestis to get a 50% boost.
Use the boost for something useful (I'd suggest drone speed, so it actually has a chance of projecting some damage at its combat range).

The issue is EWAR has to be amongst the least well documented parts of Eve. So I don't know.

But I used to think it was as you described it. Then I was in a Lach damping a mate in a falcon @ 150ish Km. 3 Damps on him, and he was able to lock me. But only some of the time.

This was way way back when falcons could jam at that range. So it may have been changed during one of the many changes since then.

I'm willing to be corrected, but would still argue that range isn't an issue on a Celestis. It would benefit more from a different bonus than the Damp optimal one. Particularly noting that fitting 2 x PGDs gets effectively the same range as the bonused Celestis, and you're not really able to make use of any range beyond that. I mean if you look back at my fit, at max targeting range on that Celestis you're only at Optimal+1/2 Falloff. With the optimal bonus with 1 PGD fitted the optimal of damps (98Km) exceeds the targeting range on a Celestis without a Sig Amp or SeBo (94Km). But - realistically - increasing your optimal combat range from 85 Km ish to 100 Km ish doesn't really increase your survivability. Particularly when you can already operate at 100km with only a slightly reduced effectiveness.

My issue is that the optimal range bonus doesn't allow it to do anything it can't do already. I mean, I get that CCP wants the Celestis to be long ranged and I agree: but would much rather see a Drone bonus that allows it to make use of its decent drone bay from a long range.