Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I dunno, ECM is called cancer for a reason. There are some core reason why people hate it so much.



Mainly because it's extremely powerful in small engagements, Two Rooks can shut down an entire small gang if they are lucky enough. And I think that's the problem with it in general. In large scale engagements it loses it's effectiveness, not stacking like damps, TD's and TP's and the micromanagement is annoying on a fleet scale.


It's all based on RNG, so skill in being a decent jammer pilot is diminished. Just lock and hope for a cycle to land. Keep range and stay aligned. The RNG is extreamly annoying because you don't have control over it, neither party does. I was in a fleet once, and we had engage a Drake fleet. It was a fun fight, but they had a scorp supporting them. A Hyperion pilot of ours managed to get tackle on him. He had fitted his hype with two ECCM mod. Giving him like 40 in sensor strength. He had the Scorp basically dead to rights at that point. Everyone else was to far away to be able to tackle scorpion, but he was breaking fast enough that no one was really worried about it

However due to a random roll of numbers. The Scorp was able to jam the hype and warp away to safety and warp back on the field at a safe distance.

There was no skill in the scorpions piloting that saved him. His other fleet mates didn't save him. He just got lucky. Which honestly to me, sounds like a **** mechanic.

Because of all that, it's also a very safe option for someone to fly. Lock target jam him, if he gets close to you and you suddenly miss a jam, just be aligned and warp out before he has time to relock you. For Battleships (Not a Solopwnmobile I know) dealing with a single jammer without or even with drones is a pain in the ass, most of them also don't have the mobility to get near a jammer. Cruisers and the such, being faster have a better chance of getting close to the jammer, but have lower sensor strength, making permajamming easier.



That's why jammers are annoying. It's completely RNG requires less skill than the other Ewar types. And it's basically a I WIN (Maybe, probably, but maybe) Button. No one likes to be unable to anything, and hoping for the chance to do something, because some jackwagon is in a kitsune aligning at 30km towards a random moon, wanted to fly ECM.

That reason being that it's currently fashionable to slap the "cancer" label on anything you don't like.

Story goes "I knew there was a griffin, I took my chances, did not work, CCPLS change the game so I can win and they lose next time."
Cause making eccm scriptable in otherwise useful mod was not OP enough. Sebos are great. You fit them. End of story.

what I was thinking. Not even a case of cloaked falcon. That you might get some empathy from.

You know the drill. Rock writes CCP and says yeah scissors is balanced just right...you don't change a thing there. But CCP....we need to talk about paper, that mofo is op as hell.


Rest....sebo a wonderful thing really. 3 scripts, ECCM, res and range. CCP has made this mod about as appealing as you can get it.

Sig amp in lows also helps. That got 3 for the price of 1 too.

“Some capsuleers claim that ECM is 'dishonorable' and 'unfair'. Jam those ones first, and kill them last.” - Jirai 'Fatal' Laitanen, Pithum Nullifier Training Manual c. YC104

Orthrus Svip, and people dislike things for reasons. Which is listed and what you ignored above.


Regardless, I think RNG is **** game mechanic for a skill based MMO RPG.


Which oddly both of you completely ignored in favor of cherry picking.

Just a note on your probabilities.

Jam Successful is 36% (or 0.36) per ECM module
Jam Unsuccesful is 64% (or 0.64) per ECM module

Using all four jammers on a single target gives you a probability of no jam as follows:

0.64 x 0.64 x 0.64 x 0.64 = 0.1677 or 16.8% chance of all four jammers failing. So your 36% jammers used on one target have a 83.2% chance of success, each cycle. Only one has to be good.

This is the sweetspot people call "perma jamming".

This is why ECM when it is discussed is so very situational. ECM used as a force multiplier against multiple targets is far less effective than against a single target. The situations (scenario's) are very different.

Whilst I do not support the OP's suggestions, whilst I agree that ECM does not need a nerf, I am in support of a change to ECM mechanics. The Boom or Bust design along with the blanket effect of total neutralisation of the "victim" makes the mechanics poor imo.

When jammed you lose not only your ability to deal damage from the ECM aggressor, you lose all ability to deal damage to any target, you lose any ability you had to range control and therefore, most likely any ability to escape (not so in most cases against TD, TP or RSD).

I'd much prefer to see CCP re-work the ECM modules into a mechanism to attack ships via their electronics. A method of destroying the modules on the inside of the ship in order to neutralize the target.

My initial concept (without any major development of the idea) is to cause overheat damage to active modules. The target would lose modules effected by ECM attacks to heat damage, unless they deactivate them perhaps. It would be possible to repair deactivated modules using nanite paste (either slowing the damage or countering the damage).

ECCM could be redesigned to use nanite pastes charges to "cool" the modules or reduce the damage/ counter repair modules. This could even have a proactive, as well as a reactive, effect and reason for fitting (overheat it all for longer!!!)

Finally, the ECM modules could have an effect that once all active modules are broken or offline that the target capacitor begins to overcharge. The increase in charge rate rapidly fills up the capacitor to 100% and then to overload.... forcing the capsule to eject from the ship. "Forced Ejection".

Anyone for a new New Eden career in Ship hijacking?

A couple more observations from the math.

First, chance to jam increases almost linearly with the number of jammers up to about 75%. After that, the number of jammers needed takes on a clear exponential increase.

Second, to keep your jam rate at 50%, you need a sensor strength twice the jam strength for one jammer, 3.5 times the jam strength for two jammers, 5 times the jam jam strength for three jammers, and 6.5 times the jam strength for four jammers. Reasonable minds could disagree as to whether that should be tweaked.

Third, ECM is painfully useless on unbonused hulls. So very painfully useless. As a result, if you get jammed, someone went out of their way to bring a jamming ship, and that ship is only good for one thing. If it can't do its job it has no place ever undocking.

Fourth, the relative paucity of ECM whine threads is interesting, and I suspect it has to do with how underpowered Minmitar weapon systems are right now (at the cruiser and frigate level). Minmatar ships still have the weakest sensors and I recall seeing way more complaint threads back when medium ACs were a real thing.

However, who flies an ECM ship without Signal Distortion Amplifiers? Who does not min / max? So you're probably talking about slightly better probabilities for each ECM module.

Falcon and Rook have higher still chance and would likely bring 5 ECM modules minimum.

14.2/47 = 0.302 so chance of fail is 70% per module. 5 ECM (assumes fit for faction I know) = 0.168 or 17% chance of fail per cycle of 5. So 5 have a 83% success rate.


Furthermore, whilst 75% does not sound like "permajamming", think about the implications in a combat situation for the target. Many will feel that was the effect.

In a fight lasting 200 seconds. The target is, on average, blocked from doing anything but changing direction for 140 seconds in that fight.

Try accomplishing much in a fight, under these circumstances.

Engagements are often in smaller hulls (dessies and frigs) where the average fight lasts up to 60s. Only need the first 3 cycles (7-8 from 10) to be successful and you have your "permajam" experience.



This is the problem with so many of the arguments that have gone back and forth before.

ECM is not overpowered. It is broken.

• It is the effect of a successful jam (denial of all actions)
• coupled with an increasing chance as you "stack" ECM modules (greater chance of more cycles of jam) on a single target
• with diminishing returns against multiple targets
• an exponential increased risk to loss of your ship against multiple targets
• because you can only use ship hulls that have to be weaker, slower and have less dps than the peers from other factions
• because of the outrageous impact of successful jams
Poor gameplay, poor design.

Why are Caldari EW ships forced into a niche whereas Gallente, Minmatar & Amarr have much wider use/roles?

Do you seriously believe that ECM would have been designed this way with hindsight? Time for a positive change. Give us a good ECM system.

As I have stated elsewhere, I support a complete remodelling:

• A system based on heat damage of the target ships modules that cause them to break (nanite repair paste please).
• ECCM could be redesigned to protect modules from heat damage for longer, resulting in an additional proactive application.
• With a possible extra of capacitor overload to cause deliberate forced capsule eject and a new career based on ship hijacking.

Not sure you can tweak probabilities on a RND system. Of course multiple ECCM scripts stack so if you double sebo with ECCM scripts you get a much higher gain, at the very expensive use of another med slot.


Again why are Caldari forced into a niche and the other factions not? Why do they have an EWAR system that cannot be used in the same way as a TD, TP or RSD?



That is as much to do with the huge number of overpowered/underpowered aimless arguments of the past. Situational examples can be spun by either side of the argument to apparently prove their argument.