Player Features and Ideas Discussion

What if we considered sensor strength as a ressource pool, like capacitor, instead of a raw stat?

• UI would display your own pool so that you could know at which level your sensor strength is.
• Activating an ECM module or a remote ECCM module on a target would give you the current sensor strength of the target that received the module activation. At the moment of the activation of said module. (Just like a ship scanner gives you the current cap of your target at the time of module activation - except that it would be displayed with a number on the target icon for instance)
• Every ship would have a base sensor strength regeneration, relative to the current sensor strength stats of the ship. This regeneration would be linear.
• Every ECM module would lower the sensor strength of the target on a per second basis. Once you hit 0, you loose all current targets and cannot target anymore.
• The pool can go below 0, up to a negative number equal to the base sensor strength of the ship.
• At soon as you have a sensor strength higher than 0, you instant-target every target that you had a finished lock on, before being jammed. If you were in the process of targeting something, the targeting will have to start over. (To keep the synergy between scan res damp and ECM)
• ECCM lowslots would give a regeneration of strength/sec AND increase your maximum sensor strength 96% stacking penalized.
• ECCM midslot (and remote) scriptable to either act as a worst ECCM lowslot, but with the possibility of commiting on regen or max strength. Note: Currently an ECCM midslot gives around 96% bonus to max strength. Make it the bonus without script (reduce it to ~75% so that unscripted medslot = worst than lowslot non scriptable). With script, jump to 200% bonus to total strength => FINALLY gives non-T3 sniping ships the ability to reach the combat probe difficulty cap, = sniping at very long ranges (= mostly with hybrids + spike) now becomes a valid mechanic again!
• Remote ECCM would give the same stats then an ECCM midslot.
• Add a "broadcast for ECCM" ? :D

This way, we avoid most(all?) issues with ECM:

• It becomes a "fair" mechanic, not RNG based. Predictable, counterable. (More on this topic, below)
• Just like other E-War, if you equip a module to counter a specific E-war, you avoid completely roughly one instance of that E-war. (example : with a sensor booster, you counter a sensor dampener, 1-1=0, back to square one).
• If you do not equip any module against that E-war, you'll get fu**ed but that's a legitimate mechanic. (example: try to hit something with -75% tracking speed and no tracking module to counter that. Except that you do not get ****** instantly, instead you have time to see it coming. Because your pool is going down, but not instantly.)
• So if two ECM ships jamms eachothers, okay one will finish by jam the other without being jammed itself, but this ship will be left with a low sensor strength pool and thus highly vulnerable to ECM. Or, since your current cycle will have to finish, you may be able to jam the target that jammed you with the remaining server ticks before your module deactivates.
• ECM drones actually useful and balanced!! No more stupidly low ECM chance and 20sec jam if you're lucky. Instead, ECM drones will either slowly grind your sensor strength, or if you are protected enough, do nothing at all.
• Just like ECM drones, ships protecting against ECM would be actually rewarded for doing so. For instance, currently two basilisks with two ECCM medslot and an ECCM lowslot will have roughly a monster 100 Sensor strength. Still, if a ship comes and try to ECM them, or if ecm drones are around, its not a matter of if, but a matter of when they will succeed. Meaning that, theorically you can protect yourself as much as you want, a single light ECM drone WILL jam a basi for 20second at some point and kill both basi in the process, and the whole fleet, by breaking the capchain. Instead now, if you protect yourself against ECM, you cannot be disrupted by insignificant ****.

Comments?

I sorta like this. It would destroy sabre+falcon which is probably actually a good thing.

At the same time ecm would remain a useful tool for disabling logistics ships.

I think this idea would lead simply to more whine.

Imagine, if you will - the fact that Griffin, Kitsune, Blackbird, Falcon - etc - these ships have HUGE ranges. Heck, in a blackbird with a max range rig, long range targeting 5, and a few basic support skills - I can lock onto things from like 140km away or so.

Now, if we change ECM in the way you suggested, instead of me taking a HEAVY nerf to my ability to land a ECM at that kind of range (ECM does have a optimal range and falloff) - I can simply sit at that extreme range and after a few cycles extra and wearing out my targets sensor strength, be guaranteed a jam on the target.

To be honest, I am a ECM pilot in general when I am with fleets. I don't feel the current mechanic is broken. If I want to have a very good chance of landing jams without much risk of failure, I have to place my super fragile (read: a couple well placed shots will generally alpha me) boat a bit close to the line of fire. My only defense against being taken out of the fight in a matter of seconds is extreme range (which lowers my ability to jam you) and/or landing a jam on the target(s) that are firing at me.

I've lost count of how many fights (and I am talking 20+ person fights, not just super small engagements) where my enemy gets tunnel vision, as usual I drop on grid a bit after the fighting stats up - and jam ship after ship after ship without the enemy FC giving the 3 words that would take me out of the fight - "Primary the blackbird". Once the enemy fleet switches to me as a primary target, my only option is to warp off grid (thus removing my ECM from the fight), ECM all the attackers (keeping more then a few targets locked down might happen - but if a entire fleet of ten suddenly calls me primary? No way I can jam that out), or sacrifice myself allowing my fleets DPS and support boats a few extra seconds of time to do what they do.

Went up against a fleet a few days ago with 2x logi boats in the fleet, both equipped with a single ECCM module. We had no idea they would be equipped as such. FC order was for me to achieve jam one ONE of the logis, so the fleet could target the other and take it out of the fight. 5x jammers equipped, 2 of them were racial specific to the logi boat in particular. First attempt to jam one with all 5 jammers failed. Second attempt failed. That's 40 seconds now that I was nothing but a soft target that could have been dropped in seconds - no one targeted me. Third jam worked - we drop their logi ships. ECCM worked - it gave the enemy fleet nearly a full 60 seconds to realize there was a blackbird on the grid and to somehow remove me from the fight (a single frigate would have been able to force me off grid or destroy me in that time if they were equipped well).

I don't feel ECM needs any changes - but there's some FC's out there that really need lessons in how to deal with ECM when it is being used against them.

ECCM is not the only counter to ECM - there's a far easier method. DPS. ECM boats are generally quite fragile and unable to stand up to any punishment at all.

You've obviously never heard of an ECMGU, those things just don't die.

Also, this is not really a good idea, because:
Basis, and Guardians would be nerfed to **** with this because now and then these ships do cap 2 targets at the same time giving them -2 lockable target from their overall pool, which would make it so much easier to kill them and that would render them more or less useless, unless you're fighting small scale gangs, since ECM is not used that often there.

This is one of the better ideas from F&I though, just probably wouldn't work in practice.

How is it any different from a neuting legion capping a blaster / laser ship ? :)



I don't understand the relation between my idea and your comment. The number of targets that basi would have to have to maintain their cap chain wouldn't change. And my idea does not include any diminution of the maximum number of targets for a ship.

It would be quite a up to basis and guardians actually. A fair up: If you equip one ECCM, the regeneration in sensor strength that it provides should be enough to counter at least one racial ECM module (actual numbers not defined, I'm just debating a concept not balance tweaks). As it currently stands, no matter how many counters to ECM you bring, you cannot be immune to even a single light ECM drone. Which is bad. Especially given that breaking the cap chain once even for "only" 20 seconds, will kill your fleet.

First, a single wrecking shot won't change much to the overall dps of your ship, whereas here, a single ECM will paralyze your rep for 20 seconds! and the reps of your partner in case of a capchain. The consequences are WAY more dramatic.

Second, because only ONE proc can change everything, the question is not "probably not going to happen". It becomes a question of time. An ineluctable bad issue that you cannot avoid whatsoever.

Third, if you take a single ECCM logi like most guardian fits, you will get around 40-45 sensor strength. A light ECM drone is 1 sensor strength. A volley of them is thus 5 attemps every 20 seconds. Each attempt would have roughly 2.5% chances to end your ability to target, the ability for you and your partner to rep, and all that, for 20 seconds plus the time needed to relock and reestablish the cap chain plus one cycle of cap transfers. Effectively killing your fleet in a small-scale gang engagement.

I'm bad with maths, but I'm pretty sure that the chances that you get ECMed (thus die and kill your fleet) for just a single flight of light drones are then 1 - (1 * 0.975 * 0.975 * 0.975 * 0.975 * 0.975)). = 11.89%
So one engagment every nine engagement, a single ***ing flight of light drones will ECM your guardian and kill your fleet. Great. And its only on the FIRST cycle. Thats BEFORE you even get the chance to counter these drones by smartbombing them. That's BEFORE you get any chance of using strategy to survive...

Yes it also means that 88,11% of the time you'll be fine for the first cycle, get a chance to smartbomb these drones, and the ennemy will have 'vasted' a set of 5 light drones so thats roughly... 50-60dps? Not that much of a loss compared to what could have happened if this ECM had worked.

But the point is that 11.89% is not negligible. At all. And it doesn't sound "super low" to me.

Hmmm, not sure I got my point out there. What I meant was - at EXTREME range (with my current skill set, in a Blackbird, my optimal range for ECM is somewhere around 50km, anything more then that and I suffer falloff) - let's say 115km - my chance of landing a jam is so low it is almost negligible. I've tested this, i've gotten "lucky" once or twice, but this is out of dozens and dozens of attempts in a test situation with a corpie. Under your proposed change, all I need to do is sit there - i'll be taking a penalty on my strength due to range, but after x cycles I am 100% sure to get a jam, all at a range where I cannot be shot at (at least in most of the battles I end up in, I play in a FW corp, it's rare to see sniper boats that can hit at that kind of range in the kind of fights I am mostly involved in). As the targets notice me on grid, there is a good chance one or more of them are going to burn straight at me to get in weapons range - at which point I simply assign ECM to them, they are separated from their main force and as they are getting closer to me, I will more then likely be able to jam them under your proposed change. The more I think about your change, it really feels like you want to make ECM even stronger :)



Well, sometimes I can warp off grid - not always! The risk is actually pretty extreme. All it takes is a single MWD fit and rigged frigate and me failing to notice one of them has broken off and is flying straight at me with a overheated point and I am doomed. This happens more often then I am able to warp off grid, however - I am getting better at keeping that ECM bird aligned and ready to bug out on a moments notice. To say that I am not taking any risk is quite false, however. A fast look at my killboard over on zkill will show you a few dozen griffins and blackbirds that feel otherwise :)



I see your point. What I was trying to stress is that a ECM bird that is totally dedicated to ECM leaves little to no room for tank, not if you want a high chance to land those jams when they really count. DPS is a counter to everything, but when you are in a fully ECM rigged and fully ECM fit griffin, for example (which will give you about 950 EHP) - DPS is a much much much more viable counter then it is for a ship that is designed for normal combat operations.

Ha so my math seems right
Thanks for the discussion guys its very interesting.

Really all my idea would do is to make the theoretical time to jam become the practical time to jam, and render the jam "permanent" as long as your module keeps cycling the same target.
On the other hand, the jam would take time to be effective and force the ECM ship to commit to the fight, plus the second you are not ECMed, you get all your targets back.

So maybe I'm wrong, but the goal of this change is not to radically change the situations where ECM would work and where ECM wouldn't, its to reduce to zero the role of probabilities so that every situation has an expectable outcome you can react to. That's why I find the argument of range, for instance, odd. Because basically this idea won't change the way range would interact with ECM.

ECM in its current form is an abomination of dice-roll and perma-jamming f#ckery. So say we all.

Whoa... this is brilliant! Perhaps we could have two different ECCM modules, one that increases maximum Sensor strength, and one that increases sensor regen? I would suggest that they would be scripts, but then you would load the sensor strength boosting one first and swap to regen once you had taken ECM hits essentially giving you both at the same time.