EVE General Discussion

I agree with your conclusions, but this statement is at least not entirely correct. From my experience, ECM drones become more powerful in larger gangs, not less. That's really just a question of math.

Let's say you're fighting 5 vs. 10. Everyone has ECM drones, so that on average, 2 ships in your gang and one ship in their gang will be jammed. (Since they have 2x as many drones) Now you're fighting 3 versus 9. Their numerical advantage has increased from 2:1 to 3:1.

If both parties use damage drones instead, it looks different. Let's say 5 sets of drones so as much damage as one additional ship. (Which would be approximately correct e.g. on a Drake or a Brutix) Now your gang has 6 ships worth of damage, theirs has 12. Numerical advantage has stayed the same.

In such situations, it is almost always favorable for the larger gang to have ECM drones whereas the smaller gang profits from using damage drones more.

Yes nerf them. When we go to gate camp people using a single tackle and the rest dps boats we absolutely hate having that guy ecm drone our only tackle and escape our clutches. Thanks for listening CCP.

While we're at it, its a pain to have our logistics ships interrupted. Do you realize how nice it would be to be able to fly just logistics ships and have absolutely nothing break our chain? We fly close formation and we're an unbreakable wall. Its about time CCP started catering to us.

And while we're at it, the ECM resistance skills you added, thanks. But we need more. Giving up slots for eccm or backup arrays hinders our plans for 1 tackle + as many glass glannons as we can, fleet doctrine. Any help you can throw our way would be awesome.

And one more thing. This is a separate issue but i'll throw it in. We need cloak probes. We can not create an impenetrable system when someone can hide within it. Cloakers can. Its imbalanced, big time.

reposted below.

ECM drones have a jam strength of 1. A flight of drones is 5 separate ECM strength 1 craft on one target. If that target is so poorly outfitted as to make 5x 1 jam strength drones completely shut them down they deserve to die.

Combat drones do damage and explode ships, ecm drones do no damage and have a very small chance of jamming.

How much damage can a flight of 5 T2 combat drones put out in 20 seconds? Let's use t2 since, you know, they exist.

ECM is only problematic to those who absolutely refuse to defend even slightly against it. But because 90% of the playerbase of all MMOs have the inability to do anything self empowering other than whine, we most definitely should dumb the game down to where only tank and dps matters. Im all for catering to the stupid.

For the love of Allah, CCP, dumb the game down to the masses. Im sure you'll gain MILLIONS of subscribers to replace your higher intellect playerbase that only bothers playing EVE because of its complexity. Because it should be obvious people would sit around camping hours on end for a kill as you require with a room temperature IQ and ADD.

You'd think DUST514 completely wiping the floor with Call of Duty would show you something.

ECM ships = Falcon/Rook/Scorpion/Blackbird/Griffin/Kitsune/Widow. Every other ship are non-ECM ships. And yet they can instajam you and get away with it, no problem.

Please show me one of your losses, or even a loss (doesn't matter if it's yours) where someone fitted an ECCM while not trying to counter a specific fleet/ship or trying to active-tank vs a gang.

No one ever fits ECCM when fighting non-ECM ships. It's THAT simple. You don't fit ECCM when fighting Thoraxes because Thoraxes don't fit ECM modules, because it's bad to fit ECM on a Thorax. You fit ECCM when fighting ACTUAL ECM SHIPS. Except that because of EC300s, every ship is an ECM ship. That's what's wrong.

And please don't try to come up with a "because of combat drones, every ship is a DPS ship". That's a stupid argument. They are totally BAD at it. Industrials can fit turrets. Are they DPS ships ? No. Simple. 20 seconds of not-locking works the same on every ship, the only thing that changes is the percentage of possible jams. An industrial with a single turret does like 20 DPS, which doesn't matter at all no matter what.

-The issue with Combat Drones is that they can be used by any ship. Do you fit shields when killing a freighter? I do. Because there is always the potential while i'm killing it I may need those shields. I guess its just one of those things you expect and have some preparation against or suffer the consequences when you don't have it.

Shields (or tank) are useful in almost every combat situation except maybe sniping and bombing. ECCMs are not.



Warp-out before he locks you ? Don't be there in the first place ? Use your Dscan to avoid it ? Be faster than him ? Is that "a small chance to get out" ? To me, it's "You were stupid staying there, not moving at all, waiting for your perfect counter to come in and then you used the OP drones which made your escape super easy".



It's not a lot higher, it's slighly higher. And while you did fit ECCM (Or multiple ECCMs), the other ship fitted a web, or another capbooster. Webs are useful in a whole lot of combat situation. Capboosters are, on active tanked ships. ECCMs are only useful when fighting ships that actually use ECM. Be it regular ECM, or ECM drones.

Also, what do you call "fleet" ? If it's small gang from 5 to 10, then fitting ECCM on most of your ships heavely handicapes you. Yes, Vagabonds can't fit ECCMs without being shitfit. Cynabals can't. Taloses can't. Hell, most roaming ships can't and shouldn't anyway.

If it's a large fleet, ECM don't really matter as ECM ships are very, very weak and small drones don't matter much.



You're fighting an hostile. A second hostile comes in and you're still tackled. Well, escape him. Web him so that he's slower than you. When out of scramble range, MWD to freedom. And that's if you're scrambled. If you're not, overload MWD and leave.

You're fighting an hostile. You win the fight. Second hostile comes in. Well, warp-out maybe ? Or you could be stupid, stay there, wait while he locks you, wait until he tackles you, then suddenly see that you're in armor and you should get out. Pop drones out, instajam and warp away.



Ahah, seriously dude. ECM pilots that cross-train into drones. That's funny. You don't cross-train into ECM drones. You train them because everyone uses them because they are either the annoying "I escape and you can't do **** about it" button, or the "Sit there for 20 seconds while I'm shooting you and there is nothing you can do about it".

Anyway, I'm bored of your trolling. Good day sir.

Strut around like you're victorious if you want to. ECM drones still are bad, are not a valid "cross-training option for ECM pilots". They are the quick "i don't care what you fly, I jam you with my non-jamming ship and get away no problem" solution.

It's not "good enough". It's not even close to good. Can't outrun them, can't outrange them, can't avoid ships using them, the only module counter is a module that is of no use when no one tries to jam you as opposed to every other Ewar types, they are multispectral so the guy using them doesn't even have to guess what racial ship you're going to fly, and the list goes on.

Your arguments revolve around combat drones being usable on every ship (notice how every ships but ECM ships and industrials are fighting ships or at least ships involved in combat ? And they can use combat drones, that's weird right ?). My arguments don't.

And your copy-pasta of a wikipedia page or something confirms what I thought. You're trolling. Either that or you really are beyond the no-return point.

Quick EDIT :

Some guy said something along the lines of "What if ECM drones disabled only highslots ?".

That's a solution I'd accept. Is it the perfect world/impossible standard that no one can ever hope to achieve ? No.

Is it better than the current situation ? Yes, very much. ECM drones aren't the easy escape solution anymore.

Are ECM drones still good ? Well, if you consider the fact that for 20 seconds, the hostile ship won't shoot/rep/neut, then yes.

I am forced to quote myself then.

Capboosters counter neut but are still useful in other situations.

Tracking computers counter tracking disruptors but are still useful in other situations.

Sensor boosters counter sensor damps but are still useful in other situations.

ECCMs counters ECM and are useless in every other situation.

That's an argument. One of the multiple arguments that I've made against ECM drones. I even proposed a solution to the OPness of those drones. And what do you do ?

Reply with "Well you can use combat drones on every ship too !" and "Use ECCM" (already said why ECCM/ECMdrones are bad).

Smartbombs is about the only valid counter to ECM drones tbh. Too bad a lot of ships don't have utility highslot. But I can see it already : "Why not drop a heavely bonused gun to fit a smartbomb ? I mean, of course you're going to be at a disadvantage versus someone who fit 7 guns on his Megathron instead of 6 and a smartbomb. BUT YOU'LL COUNTER ECM DRONES, HOW CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND".

So please, explain me how the "ECM drones now disable only highslot modules" solution is a bad solution. Please explain me how ECM drones being the quick exit they currently are is part of the oh-so-incredibly deep and complex parts of EVE. Please explain me how ECCM is useful in anything but counter ECM (which is only fitted on like 6 hulls in the game) and ECM drones (which can be fitted on everything that flies but some frigates).

So yeah, ECM drones really are an important part of EVE that devs shouldn't improve upon because improving upon the quick-easy escape solution that it currently is, is apparently an impossible standard or something that only belongs in a perfect world.

ECCM or backup arrays should be fitted on every ship, just incase you encounter one of the 100+ hulls that can (and will) use ECM drones. Even ships which really don't have enough room to fit ECCMs + a minimum tank/gank/tackle.

I just made it shorter so that readers can fully understand your opinion and compare it to their own experience.

And you apparently can't tell me why only disabling highslots for 20 seconds isn't a reasonable solution, as opposed to how it is now. It's harder than copypasting Wikipedia, I suppose.

Wasn't my opinion. I just compiled yours in 2 sentences so it's easier to fully understand.

And yes, tackling gear are medslot modules. If you want retreat, you may use ECM as an exit solution, of course. With either an ECM module, that makes your ship worse than a ship with no ECM module. Or a mate in a Falcon/ECM ship. How about that ?

If you want proper ECM, use ECM ships. If you want ECM on a ship that isn't an ECM ship, you can use ECM drones which only shut down the hostile DPS (which is still pretty good, compare it to the other small EW drones. They are hilariously bad and no one uses them except in AT).

Ain't that great ? :)