Player Features and Ideas Discussion

But they'll be mandatory and we all know it.

Further, ALL other ewar mitigating skills serve some purpose other than EWAR and often are part of pre-req's for other skills/ships/etc anyway.

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Perhaps alter the ECCM modules to be scripts to either reduce duration/pump up sensor strength instead? People can choose to increase their odds of no jam at all at a risk of normal jam length if it fails, or accept assured shorter jam duration whilst not mitigating the jam odds themselves?

Edit 2: Why don't ECM'd targets automatically reacquire the targets they had locked? Seems unnecessarily punitive to re-add lock time. Perhaps coupled with the changes I suggested above things may be a bit more sensible?

I see all these people whinging about the new skills as if it will take a substantial amount of their training time in order to train to a decent level. Failing to realize that investing 2 days or so into each race to get rank 4 will protect them from weeks if not months worth of training on the end of an ECM pilot. Let alone without putting any forethought into their actions such as using ECCM modules, ECCM Implants (Trust me, these make a huge difference).

See a good point that is made here is the fact that people keep talking about skills such as "Long range targeting" as if they are used to mitigate sensor dampening. When in reality I require a lot of these skills in order to make my fits WORK - I dont train them so I can mitigate tracking disruption or sensor dampening. Because the moments they are used against say a sniping fit I must change my fighting style drastically.

So how do I counter these? Well for the most part by having a Tracking Computer, Sensor Booster, ECCM (You know this exists for a reason) or using ECM , Tracking Links, Remote Sensor Boosters / Sensor Dampeners with my alt in order to support my main character with my secondary one.

So what my one question is, I keep hearing "Sensor Strength will help protect you from ALL E-War". If this is the case... and the 25% bonus will have a drastic increase - Then why would I not fit ECCM onto my ship to push my sensor strength into the hundreds?

This, exactly this. As stated before for all I care ECCM can completely stop a ECM pilot from working at all. Atleast it requires forethought, intelligence and planning in order to make the pilot effective.

Punish the min maxers who don't want to give up a mid or low slot in order to counter the 'dreadful' ECM plague.

I do agree completely with changing ECM drones - Either removing them, nerfing them drastically or making it so the target simply loses lock. Why? Because it completely derails the value of actually having an active ECM Pilot - Yes they are far superior, but the amount of effort and resources to have a "soft" ECM pilot always available is not acceptable in my opinion. There have been times I have fallen into a trap and my drones allowed me to have disruption dropped, allowing me to escape. This is where I see them as a good choice - But then there are other times my Blackbird has been jammed 100% by ECM drones off a frigate.

Essentially what I am saying, is for their power output and ability to change the fight they are a minimal investment by the pilot in question. ECM Pilots though will often take time to actually think about what they will fighting. Changing their slot layout to match their proposed opposition, being drastically weakened should the enemies fleet layout change their format. This is why I enjoy ECM, I figure out what my opponent is bringing in order to increase my odds of survival.

What I enjoy about ECM is the flexibility it provides to my sniper ship in FW. My main character and alt will be engaging a group of six or so. One will be split off and come burning at my sniper ship which has little to no tank. I over heat my jammers on my alt, jam him specifically - Load short range ammo and engage him face to face.

It is a good feeling knowing I am capable of doing this and being flexible with my engagement range when I have another ship to assist my main one. It also allows me to go balls deep into engaging odds that do not favor me. Even if I still lose, it gives me a fighting chance and gives me more flexibility with how I can play the game.

In my opinion, its not the number of skills, but their combined rank that really matters....

4x Rank 1 skills is reasonable.... 4x Rank 2 is borderline excessive, and 4x Rank 3 is downright over the top!!!

Twelve Ranks of skillpoints that do nothing for you other than make you harder to jam and harder to scan..... And only marginally harder at either of those things!!! That's just wrong!!!

Either Ship sensor strength needs to be applicable to more areas of the game, or the ranks of these "new skills" needs to be seriously reduced!!!!

That's hypocrisy; fitting a ECCM is neither intelligent nor a counter.

ECCM being a perfect protection from ECM makes the fight outcome determined totally at the fitting screen, that's a primitive tic-tac-toe played blind, either you 'guess' and thus win or either you don't and then lose.

It's not about min-maxing, a good setup already has quite a bunch of compromises and only stupid trolls can deny that - no one goes for sheer DPS or pure speed etc., unless he is going to die horribly. It's more about the facts how:

1) eccm being totally useless unless hit by ecm
2) a lot of ships simply don't have an option of fitting it, you simply can not waste a mid on a 3-mid ship unless you fly in blobs. So using it in small-scale PvP isn't a option at least for 3-mids armour tankers and 4-5 mids shield tankers. Isn't it ironic how ECM is said to be ok or even underpowered in blobs?

Finally, who the hell told you that we should seek protection against ECM alone? How about you try to suggest us fitting a couple of SeBos to 'counter' damps or loads of TCs to 'counter' TDs? That would be even more of intelligent and foresight fitting. LOL

Neuting is a good mechanics, it relies on actual piloting skills and can be countered by intelligent cap-boosting, as I have already written above. EWAR is plain primite piloting-wise. Finally:

THERE IS NO LONG-RANGE COVERT CLOAKY NEUTING FAGGOTRY OUT THERE

Make Falcon a short-range browler just like a Pilgrim and it will become super-balanced. And there's a reason why Bhaal doesn't have any range bonuses for neuts, being able to neut from 60k would be pretty OP. So no, neuting doesn't even stand close.

What is your opinion on the use of an ECCM module assuming they allow sensor strength to additionally improve defenses on a soft level against other ships E-War. To a level I can agree with this except for the fact it goes against the standard long range engagement philosophy of the Caldari, but with the possible changes pushing some Caldari ships into close range engagement ranges I would not completely disagree - But if this was to be put into place I would want the falcon to be given at least a bit of a substantial tank. I myself do not use Falcons, but I have always seen them as a very useful ship for Covert Gangs (Purely Stealth Bombers, Arazus, Rapiers, Pilgrim, Etc) as it provides a "buffer" of sorts for their soft tank. That is the only reason I would really be against a possible nerf to its engagement range.