Player Features and Ideas Discussion

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 countering 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
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You're missing my point my friend. The reason I put that we would have to remove it from the game as a solution is that we're always looking at it in the wrong way. (That's the reason for the the parenthesis after the statement.) When people look at ECM they either want ECM nerfed or ECCM buffed when in reality in order to balance ECM out with other forms of EWAR neither of those things need to occur. ECM simply needs a counter that helps the ship in a form other than to counter ECCM. (Kind of a confusing statement)

You do get a buff, its just a sucky buff for almost all ships in that it makes you harder to probe. I like the thinking, but at the same time it would have to relate to sensors, not speed. Technically nanos are already a counter to webs.

Only sensor related buff I can think is increased D-scan range but thats hella niche. Bult in meta0 ship scanner with half the range making it a little useful for neut ships maybe? Built in passive targeting with a 2 sec duration? The main sensor buffs are already counters to damps so you cant have any of those.

OP, you're forgetting ECM already has a big counter built in: Drones. All ECM ships are quite frail.

But:

What if a tech 1 ECM did -1 to target's max target lock?
What if a tech 2 ECM did -2 to target's max target lock?

Skills:
Targeting: Skill at targeting multiple targets. +1 extra target per skill level, up to the ship's maximum allowed number of targets locked.
Multitasking: Skill at targeting multiple targets. +1 extra target per skill level, up to the ship's maximum allowed number of targets locked.

Max Level V Skills = 2 (Before skills) + 5 (Targeting) + 5 (Multitasking) = 12

All ECM bonused ships should get a +2 to jamming. So a blackbird with 4 T2 ECM's could be -16. One blackbird could jam out one Maxed skilled ship. If people dont have that skill to 5, then perhaps a blackbird could nail 2.

Signal Amplifier I already adds +1 locks to your ship
Signal Amplifier II already adds +2 to locks to your ship

No, not really. ECM already has counters. I do think it's balanced at the moment.

But other forms of Ewar are rather certain in their effectiveness. It's rather like comparing chalk and cheese.

There is a guy that posts the same post in each and every one of these threads, showing the true nature of ECM. I'll try and find it and see which version we are now on.

Found it. Posted below and link here.

One thing he doesn't mention however are frigates. Specifically the Griffin and Kitsune. I've already explained the strength of a Kitsune vs a comet. However lets take for example a Griffin. A griffin has a jam strength per racial Jam of 8.1 vs a comets sensor strength (all lv 5) of 13.2, giving the Griffin a 61% chance of jamming out the Comet per jam, and any pilot is going to have more than just one jammer, good ones will have refitted to have 4 racial jammers.

Perhaps we could assign drones without a lock. (With the exception of Sentries perhaps) Just an idea.

Loving the ideas and support guys, thanks for the advice and suggestions.