Player Features and Ideas Discussion

A lot of people dislike the way ECM works, but every proposed fix is just as broken or worse. The pattern I see with these proposals is that they miss what is really the problem with ECM: not that it is chance based but that it is all or nothing. When a target is jammed, they cannot do much of anything in combat. Aside from ECM-resisting strategies that have to be pre-fit before combat, there is next to nothing you can do but wait the timer out and hope you don't get jammed again.

As stated byRawketsled:



My suggestion would usually leave the jammed ship with something to do after being jammed, and it would make jammers less of an all or nothing module. They would almost always have some negative effect on the opponent but almost never jam them completely.

The suggestion rides on using the target ship's max locked targets as discrete units, I'll call them potential target locks, or PTLs from here on out. It's simple: when you activate an ECM jammer against a target, you jam each of their PTLs separately. If they have 5 total and you have a 60% jam chance, you'll likely jam 3/5 of their PTLs. These could be target locks already in use or not, really just depending on random chance.

Let's say, for example, we use an ECM jammer against a ship with 5 PTLs, 2 of which are in use. It has two targets locked already and can lock up to a maximum of five. It is using PTL #1 and #2. We successfully jam out #2, #3, and #5. The ships' first target lock remains acquired, but the second lock is broken and must be manually reacquired. The enemy pilot immediately begins re-locking that target, using PTL #4 (the only one remaining). If we use a second ECM jammer on the opponent, there is a 60% chance we will jam out the target it does have acquired (on PTL #1), and another separate 60% chance we will jam out PTL #4 while it is still in the process of acquiring the target. The net chance of jamming both is 36% in addition to the chance of resetting the jam timer on 2, 3, and 5.

This would make it very easy for ECM to screw with someone's targeting, but much more difficult to completely remove their ability to target anything at all.


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additional balancing bits:

1.) Chance to jam would need to be increased a bit to compensate for the greatly increased chance of target maintaining one or more locks.
2.) Discrete target lock units count for ship and not player. For instance if a player with only the skill to lock 2 targets is in a ship that can lock 4 and the two they have already get jammed, they can immediately use the other two (if those are not jammed). A player can also grant themselves some resistance to ECM through fitting a Signal Amplifier, as it increases max targets locked.



already balanced:

1.) Ship size is already balanced with this because smaller ships will be jammed much more easily (less sensor strength) but will re-acquire target locks much more quickly when they get the chance (more scan resolution).
2.) Logistics and Recon ships, and any other ship types with a lot of PTLs will be much harder to jam completely. However, these ships rely on keeping multiple targets locked at once, and in some situations may feel the effects of the ECM even more strongly as they must continually re-acquire important targets (within their diminished target lock limit).

sooo its still pretty much all or nothing since you only need one lock

Reducing the jammed ship's maximum number of locked targets is not a new suggestion. But the effect is the same. If you don't completely lock out the target, they will come screaming for the ECM ship. If you do, they are permajammed.

In addition, there are actually a number of modules that will increase your maximum number of locked targets.

Such a change would also have to consider the SP allocated to sensor compensation skills, which were introduced as a direct counter to ECM. What is it, 5% per level? 20% increased sensor strength is pretty strong. Those SP would have to be refunded if the functionality of sensor strength were removed. Just recalled that combat probes consider sensor strength. So still functional.

I'd go for this if players could target the same ship multiple times, as a balancing measure for small gang combat

Each targeting unit would be jammed for the 20s, but if you have any left over, you can use those instead. If you, for instance, had three targets locked and those were your only unjammed targeting units, you would have to unlock one or wait the timer out to lock another target.

My suggestion wouldn't negatively affect small gang combat, so I disagree with your proposal.

I guess that would also apply for ECCM and remote ECCM.

It's kinda surprising that there are no hulls with native bonuses to remote ECCM, remote tracking, or remote sensor boosting modules.

Seems like they have enough to do. If we want to see exploration class ships leading squads, perhaps it would appropriate to give them such bonuses, or maybe some passive leadership traits. They usually have free target slots, and are preoccupied with the scanning screen anyhow.

I certainly don't get much use out of the hardpoint bonuses on my covert ops ships.

yeah, as a guardian pilot, i can confirm that I only ever need one target...

all this rely does is keep ECM working basicly the just over complicated and a bit more irritating