Ships & Modules

It's a shame these recurring ECM-threads have such poor quality. I've only seen a couple of decent posts (mainly those from Grimpak and Suitonia) which manage to discuss both the problem and suggestions without any overt tendency or daydreaming.

I've said it before and i'll say it again, the devs made a mistake last time around when they took the easy route out. They chopped survivability, the offensive buffs to balance out was a sham and the system itself was left largely intact (preserving the problems behind the sweepstake of risk in use). It has made, at least falcons and rooks (with inherent risk as tech II ships), ECM ships less common yet still not less potent when you have a numerical advantage and can simply pad with ECM. That remains the only balance-oriented issue: scaling.

The solutions still lie in:

1.
Leaving them be, because most complaints are all passion and no afterthought, while all EWar systems today effectively do what they set out to do, and all other Recon-oriented ships still retain two sets electronic specialisations on top of much stronger hulls. Examples of this are people who compare (situational-) Painters to ECM while ignoring (omni appliable-) Webs; claim that Dampeners are useless without realizing they do their job of limiting lock range quite well both on unbonused and bonused ships (the latter, especially when factoring in your ability to Point, Scram, Tank and do Damage by comparison), or by extension claiming the other Recons tank because they have to - while the truth is that the "Falcon" doesn't because it has to devote 4 slots to even cover the very basics of it's role (where most other systems devote 1 slot) and usually devote up to 9-10 slots to maintain it's role effectively (where the other ships tend to devote 2-5 slots).

2.
Tweaking the existing system mechanics, which proved poor results after the last attempt, with the understanding that you have a very delicate balance to walk on platforms that pay both offensively and defensively to rely on the very system you are tampering with. The best suggestion i've seen in a long time (on account of scaling) was on a community site, where a poster mentioned limiting active modules on the target to 1. It's simple yet quite ingenious since it deals with overstacking and stack-related abuse (making ECCM far more powerful in the process). That means the ECM-ship is just as effective 1:X as it is X:1, without tampering with the core mechanics of sensor-base and chance (or the system's demand on ship- and slot layout).

It does however require to be balanced out since you will throw another delicate balance further astray: that of logistics, or other lynchpin components. In short: if ECM is more difficult to force onto a specific target, the ship definately need more staying power to roll the effect. The best simple solution there remain to script the multispectrals racially, and remove racial mods, since it allow the ECM-pilot options between tank (to cover the loss of offensive depth) and offensive spread (rolling modules on more ships). Without too much work you have made ECM more useful in larger size and undermanned situations, while making them less powerful in smaller size and numerical advantages. Credit to the poster on FHC who hatched the idea, sadly i've lost the name.

3.
Remaking the entire system. When suggesting things like that you need to understand that it require alot of work, and it's delicate not only in terms of "internal balance" or design issues to make the system more user friendly on both the player and developer end, but you also need to consider outside factors such as racial balance or ship- and class balance as whole; because Caldari are in a pretty tight spot as is and you have the old RP-related issues to consider ("Caldari being the most electronic-advanced race") that has left us with additional ECM ships.

Poking around too much will create more and more issues that need to be solved (overhaul ECM > overhaul tech I ECM > overhaul the entire Caldari BS line, you get the idea), which eventually amount to more work. On top of that, no one from the community has yet managed to suggest any even half-decent completely new EWar system(s), let alone considered how to balance them, detail them, allocate them and implement them. I think most of us would prefer CCP spending so much required design-time on something that concern our daily lives more (such as balancing 0.0, because we are looking at similar commitment and proportions). Alot of time on a narrow problem.

/thread

Hi Kingwood. Correct statemets..thats a matter of taste. Claiming that one is correct is not making a statement correct.
Maybe I should write a proper post about ECM. I'm just borded of all that
whiny stuff coming again and again :-)

Bushmiller not playing atm, but I'll greet him if he logs on again.

Falcons are EVE's gaydar.
If youre in one, I got news for you.

No love for the Kitsune?
Its essentially the falcon counter.

I like ECM in general. I think falcons are balanced just fine in the vast majority of engagements. However I will admit there have been times where I was solo or in a small gang and the presence of a falcon ruined what otherwise could have been a great fight. It would be great if there was a way to tweak them so that they couldn't completely nullify nearly any 1-3 man gang yet keep them as effective as they are in all other circumstances.

I could fly my own falcon, or bring more friends or just suck it up and look for other targets. I've done all this and have to agree that overall Falcons aren't a problem to game balance even if they are occasionally frustrating at times.