Player Features and Ideas Discussion

ECM bonused ships are paper-tanked. Once they start taking fire, they either gtfo or die, and that is it.

ECM is not some purely rng fantasy. A single ECCM isn't a gimp. Its a choice, one that has a lot less of an effect than getting into a ship with no tank, as opposed to one that may not even be affected in the case or armor tanks. Oh, noes! I have 12% less tracking! What will I do?

We ECM users train our skills for literally months to get a decent chance of jamming anything bigger than a frigate. What have you done to further your chances of survival? Nothing, even though there are plenty of ways to do so. I would support adding a skill into game that boosts your sensor strength. There really should be a skill for it. There's one for locking range.

OP comes off as mad because of Falcon.

Had wall o' text, but forum ate it.

ECM pilots take huge risks with paper-thin ships. All you have to do is fit 1 module to screw us, or lock us with any weapon system that can reach 70km (Drake), unless we want to operate in falloff, where there is a second chance to completely miss on top of the chance to miss due to jam strength / sensor strength.

Changing ECM to scale like damps for example, would require a compete rework using other stats, such as number of locked targets. If you can't completely lock out the target, the recon dies, that is all. This is why it should never be changed.

Coincidentally, Falloff works very similarly to ECM. You have a chance to miss based on range rather than jam/sensor strength. Perhaps you would propose to change that as well. Should we simply scale all damage so that every fit in the game has a linear damage profile out to max range, and one always knows the outcome of a fight based only on the "best fit"?

I cannot imagine a more boring game. But if that floats your boat, perhaps Dark Orbit would be more to your liking.

Eh, no, your typical Armor Rook gets 27k EHP with just an armor tank, still having room for 6 jammers. Try again.



So... as much as any other recon?



"Gimp: A physically handicapped or lame person ship." Fitting ECCM is a handicap unless you get jammed. Fitting a cap booster is not a handicap unless you get neuted, for the simple fact that it's still beneficial even if you don't get neuted. If I fit ECCM and don't get jammed, I'm literally wasting a slot. I murdered an innocent slot. You can't say the same if I fit a cap booster and don't get neuted.



People said the same things about Dramiels. And Gallente. And Rockets. Before that, Minmatar. Before that, nano.

Oh, wait.



Well, thanks for actually addressing the purpose of my post (randomization and ECM mechanics) rather than just accusing me of being a whiner who's calling for a blanket ECM nerf.

With turrets in falloff, you have a chance to miss, yes, and you have a chance to barely scratch. However, due to the typically high RoF of turrets, "luck" doesn't really come into play unless you're using big guns like 1400mm howitzers. You barely scratch a shot, fine, wait 2 seconds and fire again and you might just get a perfect strike to make up for it.

With ECM, it's activate your mod and you either get a perfect jam or no jam. It's possible for a single light ecm drone to change the outcome of an entire gang fight because it landed a jam on a scimi for 20 seconds with a 1/35 chance of doing so. You can't say that turrets will achieve the same thing with their version of randomization.

forums ate my post not once, but twice this time. I can't be arsed to type all that out again.

ECM has to own or the ship dies because ECM mods are mids same as shield tank, which is Caldari primary tanking method. So I don't see any significant changes coming. ECM drones might get a nerf. That wouldn't be a terrible thing.

ECM is a terrible game mechanic.
There's a reason why a single Falcon is feared more than the other 3 Force Recon ships, even combined.

Very, very bad idea. Falcon and Widow will be absolute winners against any other subcaps in 1x1.

Let's consider Machariel. It has 26 LADAR sensor strength, and with has effective shooting range 80km (usually it is lesser).

Falcon with good skills has strength ~9 for multi-racial jammer. This means, that each jammer will multiply shooting range of that Machariel by 0.3462. This means, that 3 jammers will reduce shooting range to ~3.5km. Machariel is dead without any chances.


Currently, if Falcon fails to jam Machariel even once - it will be dead. Actually your suggestion is incredible overpowering for ECM. Completely inacceptable.

I really don't see how people can argue that ECM isn't a bit overpowered. I mean yes, it's chance based, and you have a good chance to DIAF, but really....if you saw a blackbird, a celestis, a bellicose, and an arbitrator show up on field, which one would you primary?

Although, maybe the issue lies in the hulls themselves.

Perhaps we should treat the ECM ships the same as the other three? They get a comparatively miniscule bonus to their ewar. Let's compare:

Celestis: 25%
Bellicose: 37.5%
Arbitrator: 37.5%
Blackbird: 75% (+ 50% range)

You could argue that the other three get a weapons bonus, but really...except for maybe the arbitrator, nobody uses those for their weapons. Let's also not forget that the blackbird's slot layout means that it can fit quite a bit more ewar than the other two, even before the bonus.

Moving on to force recon:

Pilgrim: 25% to TD, 100% to cap warfare (but no range bonus, mind...neuts are close range weapons)
Arazu: 25% to RSD, 100% range to disruptors (which one do you usually see fitted?)
Rapier: 37.5% to TP, 300% range to webs (I think you might actually get laughed at for putting TP's on these, unless you're in a missile gang)
Falcon: 150% to ECM, plus another 50% to ECM cap use

So while on the other three, their actual ewar bonus goes mostly unused, in favor of a second bonus to something else...they are no more effective with their ewar than the T1 variants. The Falcon, on the other hand, gets double the effectiveness to its ewar. It lacks the range bonus, but that doesn't matter so much on a module that's useful from 50-60km off. It also has more mid slots than the other three.

There's not much arguing here, the falcon is MUCH more effective in its chosen form of ewar.


Now let's look at Combat Recon:

Lachesis: 25% to RSD, 100% to point range, and a damage bonus to a second weapons system. WTF?
Huginn: 37.5% to TP, 300% to web range, and yet again, another split weapons system bonus. Really now...
Rook: 150% to ECM, 50% to ECM cap use, and swap to doubly bonused missiles
Curse: 37.5% to TD, 200% to neut/nos range, 100% to neut/nos effectiveness

So the lachesis gains another mid and a couple of launchers over the arazu, the huginn gains a bit more dps (still only about 400dps even when gank fitted), the rook gains three more light drones and a usable weapons system, and the curse gains a high slot and can now project its neuts across a small gang engagement, making it a significant threat....but the TD's are still no better than an arby's, and still only circumstantially useful at best.


Does anyone else see a problem here? ECM is by far the most effective form of ewar, and it gets by far the biggest bonuses on ships that use it. Not only that, but it's the only form of ewar with another module to increase its effectiveness, meaning jams from a rook/falcon, assuming a DCU is fitted, can be nearly 200% as effective as a standard jammer. The rook, blackbird, and falcon can also fit as many or more ewar modules than any of their equivalent ships, except maybe the lachesis. Assuming 2 mid slots used for prop mod/tank, the rook and falcon can still fit an effective 11-12 ECM modules. That's not even taking rigs into account. Please tell me someone sees a problem here?


I think the arguments about how squishy ecm ships are is the best testament to how effective ewar is vs the other ships. The others aren't any less squishy, but the ecm ships can survive by simply jamming anything that comes after them, completely disabling their assailant. The only other ewar ship capable of coming close to that is the curse, and even then only when the other ship doesn't have projectiles, missiles, drones, or a cap booster fitted. (that is, unless they use their larger drone bays to launch ecm drones)



edit: A fun game you can use to test this is to put the recon ships' ewar against one another. The Huginn could make the rook really slow and about the size of a drake, if it weren't jammed. The lachesis could prevent the rook from warping off, and either bring its targeting range down to about 30km or make its scan res about the same as a dreadnought...until the jams hit. The curse could potentially instantly disable the rook (except for its weapons), unless the jams hit first, but its TDs are useless against the rook's missiles, and the curse's drones couldn't auto-aggro unless they were already out when the rook fired its jams.

Now look here in the "Electronics" section http://eveboard.com/statistics/skills
Signature Dispersion is trained by 27000 pilots, and average level is below 3
Propulsion jamming is trained by 81000 pilots, and average level is above 3
In terms of balance, looks like ECM should be boosted, or webfibers/scramblers should be nerfed, according to the usage statistics.
So stop whining, even if you were jammed once successfully.

I've never seen a ship be completely disabled by a stasis webifier....


Also, the bits I'd bolded were those hulls' original ewar bonuses, if you hadn't noticed. You've reinforced my point.

And no signal dispersion amplifiers, yeah? You must be joking. Either you use Maelstrom without even a single Gyrostabilizer?


Missed that. But in that case, ECM will not be used at all. Why to ECM scramming/webbing enemy, if you can just shoot him? Absolutely no sense in such ECM.