Jita Park Speakers Corner

So as we can all tell CCP seems to be taking steps to improving the game for small gangs and solo pilots right? Mobile Depots, siphon units ect. Now can we please take a look at fixing ECM. And I don't mean nerfing it or buffing ECCM at what it does; I mean completely fixing the system. Lets give ECCM some love, but in a different way than just buffing them.

Why?

Well for small gangs, such as 3-6 people, one ECM boat cripples the entire fleet and the only reasonable counter is another ECM boat. How many times have you heard (to my fellow small gang corps and pilots) 'They've got a Falcon' 'Can we get an anti-Falcon Falcon?' If you do a significant amount of small gang you've probably heard this before. Now ECM has a counter right? ECCM? What's wrong with ECCM? It's only purpose is to counter ECM. Well, how would that be different from Tracking Disruptors, Energy Neutralizers and Sensor dampeners?
In a few ways. First to Tracking disruptors; first I would like to point out that TD's have 0 effect on missile boats, while ECM effects all combat boats equally depending on ship size. So there's your first reason that TD's aren't as effective as ECM. Second, TD's do not put a ship out of a fight necessarily. For example; I was in a small fleet yesterday, 2 comets and a condor, all fitted with TD's. We all warped into two thrashers and split our TD's upon the two with the expectation that it would shut them off; they didn't. We had anticipated that the Thrashers be auto-cannon fit and put in optimal range scripts while they were artillery fits and hit just fine ultimately killing our fleet before we had time to swap scripts. However lets say, for the sake of argument, that we had the right scripts in. With the right piloting the thrashers would have the opportunity to decrease transversal velocity enough that they would have a chance to put up some damage. When you're perma-jammed by ECM however, you put out no damage. Finally lets compare the counter of Tracking Disruptors to ECCM; Tracking enhancers and Tracking computers. Same concept as ECCM is to ECM right? Just nullify the effect of the EWAR. The difference however is that ECCM doesn't help the ship when it's not being jammed, while tracking computers and enhancers do.
Now on to Neutralizers and vampires. The obvious counter to Neutralizers is a cap injector to keep cap coming in even when it's being removed, the difference here is that, again, cap injectors are useful even when not having your energy neutralized, much alike tracking enhancers are useful when not being Tracking Disrupted.
The final EWAR is obviously Sensor Dampeners. Sensor Disruptors have a counter, however it's not implemented very often. Sensor Boosters and remote Sensor Boosters. However even Sensor Boosters help a ships scan resolution and targeting range when it's not being Sensor Dampened. So what's the other difference between ECM and Sensor Dampeners? Well once again Sensor Dampeners don't make a ship as useless as a permanent jam. If you can get a sensor disrupting ship in your reduced lock range, something that if done right is entirely possible, and tackle him then it's entirely possible to remain in the fight. While being permanently jammed though? Nope, you get to sit there until they bring more back up or you run out of cap charges or whatever the condition may be. Ultimately, There isn't a practical counter that is nearly as desirable as other counters to other forms of EWAR are.

Well we've determined the problem, but how do we fix it?

Well we've determined what's wrong with ECM. It makes a ship useless in a fight with no counter that gives the ship a bonus other then to counter ECM itself. So naturally to counter the problem we have two solutions:

1. Remove ECM from the game and give Caldari an entirely new form of EWAR. (Not preferable by any means, would require tons of work and lots of people would be upset by the process.

2. Introduce a way to give a ship a bonus to ECM AND something else on the ship.

What I'm propose is a new (probably low slot mod) that I would like to call the electronically structured hull. (open for name suggestions because that one is crap) Well how would it work? It's a mod that would be used by small gangs and solo pilots quite often. A common setup for small gangs is to kite very well, it enables solo/small gangs to engage with larger gangs at range and potentially pose a threat to the large gang without being blaped off the field. The common mod for this type of fleet is a nanofiber internal structure. This mod improves the ships agility and speed, with a drawback of raw hull hitpoints. What I'm proposing is a mod that has the same effect as a nanofiber internal structure, however without the agility buff, (potentially a smaller speed buff as well, but that's open for discussion) that also give the ship a bonus to sensor strength. (how much also open for discussion but probably around 50-75%) This way there's a counter for ECM, that helps the ship even when ECM isn't on the field (like tracking enhancers/computers/capboosters do). However isn't necessarily on every ship. Also if you look at the numbers you'll see that it wouldn't make ECM useless in these engagements. Lastly lets take a look at it in action, with the comet mentioned earlier that I love to fly.

Against an all level 5, standard fit fleet Kitsune the probability of being jammed per racial ECM mod is roughly 85% if the comet pilot has his sensor compensation skills to level 5 as well.

With the proposed mod however, it is reduced to around 53%, making the ECM still very present, however not quite as totally crippling.

I appreciate the read, please offer any advice and please keep it constructive,

Virtuozone

Edited

An ECM boat is a specialized ship requiring millions of skill points to weild effectively. It works on a chance based "roll of the die" mechanic. All other EWAR is 100% chance to work. All other EWAR can be used on boats outside of the EWAR specialty. Putting damps on bombers for example.

All ECM boats are expensive fragile paper mache-esque and subject to instant destruction should they fail to maintain range from a gang or fail to jam their target.

I have watched many videos of SOLO pilots taking on a primay target plus an ECM boat and they force the ECM boat off the field so they can finish off the primary target. In many of the videos the ECM boat explodes in a glorious ball of fire the instant they miss a jam.

I personally like the roll of the die mechanic as there are very few of these in Eve. It provides flavor.

ECM is balanced due to its % chance to hit, and limited non-ECM boat effectiveness.

There are many other things in the game that need fixed such as POSes and TiDi.

i kinda like the idea that its an extra mod u have to put on u're ship so ecm boats are stil viable, not everyone wil be running with the module afterall.
also it doesnt counter ecm completly it yust give u a better chance at not being permajammed.

Sensor Backup Arrays already exist.

Still trying to build support for this idea. Any suggestions are also greatly appreciated.

Thanks