Player Features and Ideas Discussion

An idea I was playing around with today...

EMP Shockwave Generator

Description

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On activation, begins charging. When the generator is fully charged, deactivated, or the ship runs out of capacitor, the shockwave is released, which travels up to 20km, weakening as it goes. Any ship or drone it encounters is disabled for a short duration. The shockwave effects the ship that generated it as well, and burns out the generator after firing, requiring it to be repaired after each use. The overload caused by the EMP generation causes damage to other modules on the ship as well. Due to the local interference caused by the EMP generator charging, no other high slot modules can be activated during that time.

Cannot be trained on trial accounts. Cannot be fit on capital ships.


Mechanics

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Intensity falloff ranges:

• 0-1km: 100% intensity
• 1-2km: 95% intensity
• 2-4km: 80% intensity
• 4-7km: 60% intensity
• 7-12km: 35% intensity
• 12-20km: 5% intensity

EMP Effect:

• 1 second of electronic disabling per 150 GJ of charge
• Number of disabling seconds is reduced by the intensity falloff
• Number of disabling seconds is further reduced by the ships shield EM resistance, half the armor EM resistance, and a third of the structure EM resistance. Only armor and structure EM resistance is applied for the ship generating the EMP shockwave.
• Tech 1 ships/drones have 0.1 seconds of disable resilience
• Tech 2 ships/drones have 0.5 seconds of disable resilience
• Tech 3 ships have 1.0 second of disable resilience
• All ships system go offline for the disable duration, including navigation, targetting, weapons, etc.
• Disable resilience means systems continue to function normally as if they were not disabled after the disable duration expires. If the disable resilience is overcome, systems are effectively rebooted.
• When the EMP shockwave generator module is activated, the surface of the ship is coated with visible energy.
• Any ship within a 20km radius of an active EMP shockwave generator will receive a HUD warning.
• Cannot activate EMP shockwave generator if the module is damaged.
• On release, the EMP shockwave generator takes 100% module damage, does heat damage to high modules as if the high rack had 100% heat, to the mid rack modules as if it had 50% heat, and the low rack modules as if it had 25% heat.
• Activating the module near another capsuleer in highsec will bring CONCORD.
• An EMP shockwave will safely discharge any other active EMP shockwave generators in range.

Tech I Module

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Fitting:

• High slot
• 150 CPU
• 20 PG

Attributes:

• 4 second cycle time
• 150 GJ activation cost
• 750 GJ capacity
• cannot be overheated
• tech level 1
• meta level 1

Prerequisites:

• Energy Pulse Weapons II
• Electromagnetic Physics II

Tech II Module

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Fitting:

• High slot
• 300 CPU
• 200 PG

Attributes:

• 6.5 second cycle time
• 450 GJ activation cost
• 1350 GJ capacity
• cannot be overheated
• tech level 2
• meta level 5

Prerequisites:

• Energy Pulse Weapons V
• Electromagnetic Physics V

A laser doesn't emit the same type of EM radiation as an EMP weapon (nuclear or non-nuclear). So no, the effect would not be the same.

Yes, something like this could definitely be abused. But I don't think that is a valid reason to dismiss the concept completely. I don't think the mechanic would need to have a draconian amount of restrictions nor be prohibitively expensive.

Couple things:

• It isn't very useful on a solo ship. You get disabled yourself, as well as potentially frying one or more of your top level modules.
• The fitting costs plus a MWD eat up most frig/cruiser/BC fitting, reducing its ability to do much of anything else with high slots. And without the MWD you'd be hard pressed to stay within 7km in most consenting PvP situations.
• Saying one fleet could use it against another fleet to gain an advantage doesn't make much sense as an argument to me because both fleets could use them against each other.
• This does give a huge advantage to shield tank fleets as most armor doctrines don't include any shield resistances. I'm not sure that is necessarily a bad thing, but I think the resistance aspect of it would need to be tweaked based on play testing.
• A lot of the numbers I ran where T2/T3 ship resilience was overcome involved at least 3 cycles on the T1 module (12 seconds) and 2 cycles on the T2 module (13 seconds). That is a long time, and being alpha'd in a fleet in a ship that isn't exactly fit for tanking can mean the module never reaches its potential. I will concede that it should not emit the shockwave if the ship is destroyed. Deactivated, sure, but not destroyed.
• I think activating the module within range of another capsuleer in highsec should bring CONCORD. So you have a chance to at the most get off a 2 second burst from a T1 module, or a 3 second burst from a T2 module, if you don't explode first.
• No chaining EMP bursts - EMP burst should safely deactivate anyone else's active EMP shockwave generator within range, with no refund on the cap usage.

So, pretty much everything Shah's pointed out, plus a little science.

The size of the EMP pulse required to actually affect something that flies through space is pretty horrendous. For a start the radiation coming off a star tends to fry unshielded electronics in seconds. Second as has already been pointed out (sort of) many of the weapons in Eve are generating massive amounts of EMP at the same time that they're trying to punch through your hull. If they're not affecting critical systems before the ship blows up it's a safe bet that the entire hull acts as an extremely effective Faraday Cage. To penetrate such a cage you would essentially have to induce enough current in it that it melts.

If we somehow assume that any system that could potentially be affected isn't shielded to the nines then you would still have to induce enough current at a distance to overload any sensitive components. Since we're talking about systems that routinely handle multiple Gigajoules and can exceed their actual recommended specs for short periods without long-term damage (overheating) that's going to require an absolutely monstrous amount of power. Especially since you're trying to do it outside of an atmosphere.

From what I've been able to find on the subject it appears that the EMP damage from a nuclear weapon is largely a result of interactions between the ionizing radiation from the bomb, incoming radiation from the sun, and the earth's own magnetic field.

Basically there's no way for you to generate enough of an EMP to affect a ship that's routinely pounded by lasers in the EM band, nuclear weapons, and anti-matter reactions without significant electrical issues. Never mind EM Smartbombs (which are basically what you're after but on a smaller scale than you're suggesting)

This.

And why would such a module be beneficial. Being cool or neat or spiffy is insufficient.



And unbalanced too. Render armor doctrines obsolete...good job.

Sorry, no. Next bad idea.

double post

or use a geddon paired with a falcon.

Large EMP smartbomb II

this adds more fuel to the t3 are op debates. Your mod would afffect them to a much smaller extent. The games does not need more reasons to force t3 spam.


It also screws over the people who cook their mods. They come in pre-damaged. Cooking mods adds a nice added layer to eve pvp. Be a shame to see it go away because people are worried about mods pushing them even farther.

And the whole mod shut down trend in threads here of late....this is what e-war and the vampire mod are for. Bring recons...its why ccp made them. Not every ship in fleet has to have massive dps. Even rl armies, air forces and navies have support ships that don't shoot very well. They screw over the enemy in other ways so thier buddies in shooty setups have an easier day.

What does that even mean? Your weapons quite firing? Potent. You lose locks? Annoying! Your ship stops moving? Devastating!!

A frigate can charge this up in 2-4 seconds and release the 20 km disabling burst. Well gee, why don't you give every gate camper in the verse a "stop all ships" bubble. If this shuts off cloaks too, imagine the fun! Covert ops... stopped and decloaked before it can power out of a bubble. IN T3's, stopped and decloaked before it can enter warp! There is NOTHING that can get through gate camps now.

And think, cap feed your frigate from a safe distance (an osprey can reach 107 km's with Energy Xfers). Imagine the fun you could have flying an inty into an enemy fleet, bursting and shutting down many, many ships for up to 5 seconds!

This is simply too potent! Sorry, but no way would I support this.

We have lock breaker bombs can cap neutralizing bombs, both of which are harder to deploy, and have a more balanced potency. Your idea combines too many effects, to too much potency, in an easy to dispense package.