EVE General Discussion

…another idea that has been brought up on occasion is to make jammers work more like an ECM burst: it just makes you lose target lock, and that is it. I think one of the things that earns people's ire the most about ECM is the “permajammed” feeling (and I say feeling here, since the actual occurrence of a proper permajam is exceedingly rare), so removing those 20 seconds of helplessness might drastically reduce the sheer irritation of it all.

The main problem I see with this idea is that it hits larger ship harder than small ones (they take longer to relock, so they might still get effectively permajammed), but on the other hand, they are also inherently harder to jam, so that might even out. Another problem is that it also pushes sensor booster further into compulsory-territory: they are already very useful on their own, and they act as the counter-module to damps… and with this pulse idea, they'd also be an even more important component in dealing with ECM: they let you lock quickly and get a shot or two off before the jammers have finished cycling and hit again.

On the other hand, it would indirectly give damps a nice buff, since these point-event jams would create a larger need for damps to be applied in hopes of the target not gaining lock before the next jamming cycle hits, and since it would generate more instances where that damping effect comes into play. Sure, they already do that to some effect, but since you currently get those 20s of inoperability for free, moving ECM into pulse form would turn damps into the mechanism that provides that inoperability.

It would also allow for a different kind of variation between jamming mods: instead of altering strength, you could alter cycle time and, for instance, have some jammers operate on very short cycles but at drastically reduced range, which would make them suited for use against fast-locking targets such as interceptors and ewar frigates, which would otherwise be almost unaffected by the presence of ECM.

If anything should be changed, I would say the cycle time of the ECM modules (faster) and adjust cap/strenght thereafter, I personly think the duration of a single lucky jam is too long :)

Other than that, ECM is awesome, specially when you have plenty on your side

should ccp give me an emp that turns off everything on the other guys ship forever.


yes... because its awesome if i have lots of them on my team.


so bad...





yeh cos we wouldnt like game balance (or god forbid fun...) to get in the way of the rich backstory of eve...



speaking of which... why cant i crash my mothership into stations and destroy them? must not be in the backstory... no wait...

MKINT Excellent Idea.

If ECM reduced the max number of targets and/or randomly broke target lock on A target, vs ALL targets that would be a much nicer mechanic I think.

Seriously though, why not just stacking nerf ECM strengths applied to the same target? Simple, in line with other game mechanics, boosts ECCM effectiveness, doesn't hurt the effectiveness of ECM versus fleets while making it less annoying for solo players.

You do understand that ECM does not actaully stack...right?

I really like the idea that ECM drops all targets and doesn't have a thereafter effect, or randomly drops locked targets.

Do you not understand probability? Obviously jamming is a binary state. But if you have a 14 strength jammer on a target with sensor strength 28, then you have a 50% chance of jamming PER jammer, so you can increase your chances of jamming by applying more jams IF the first one fails.

The chance of not being jammed is thus (1-.5)^x, where x is the number of jammers, and so 1-(1-.5)^x is the chance of being jammed (in this example with a 50% chance to jam per jammer.

With the change, the first jammer would still have strength 14, the second would have strength 14*.87 or whatever, I'll round to twelve.

So now when you jam someone, you apply the first jammer - 50% chance of success. Say it misses, so you apply another jammer - this has only strength 12, so a 40% chance, as there is still one jammer cycling on the target. Say this one misses too, so you put on the third jammer - but this one will only have 14*.5 strength, or 7, for a 25% chance to jam as there are already two jammers cycling on the target. You put on a fourth jam, but this was has only 14*.10 strength, or 1.4, for a 5% chance to jam as there are three prior jammers on the target - and on this one, you get a successful jam. Numbers for stacking nerf totally pulled out of thin air since I don't want to look them up.

As you can see, after the first jam fails, with this change it would be more effective to try and jam another target than to continue trying to jam your first target - this has the ancillary effect of making ships with ECCM more resistant to ECM as you stacking loads of ECM on them is no longer as effective.

EDIT: To clarify, the stacking nerf is based on the number of ECM jammers cycling on the target when the ECM is first applied, so each subsequent jammer applied after the first to the same target would suffer this nerf to it's strength. Obviously, if you succeed in jamming them with the first, more aren't needed - but if you don't, then it become progressively harder to get a jam on that target during this cycle by simply applying more jams.

As it is, a ecm pilot applies one jam to a target, see if it hits, then applies more until the jam holds - with this, they'd be more tempted to spread out their jams around multiple targets to maximize jam strength and thus the number of targets jammed.

Yes I do. thanks.





Ok I do see where you are going with this, however, any decent fleet / gang will spread their jams any way. If not Darwinism will take over.

If you have 40 dudes jaming one guy, well first off it means he is way out numbered any way, he is logistics, he is ewar of some sort or the fleet is that bored and dumb and they will do that anyway.

Yes I am opposed to it. There is no reason to change it at all. If the FC's doctrine is to focus jam one ship in a fleet engagement....well, then he is stupid, his gang will perish, Darwinism in full effect.

The folks that know how to use it now, who usually do very well, spread their jams, and do exactly what you are suggesting already.

There is absolutely no reason to help out the little faggots that can not figure out how to run it. Let them die, repeatedly.